Trees 
ele ee ae: 


- 


diately: tiie ce eta 
Teese RY eee 
aren 

- 


Hie Mall di ed seed 
Pesto ae coer te 


BIN ee me ete” 
oe MS Nese ene belie Deeded Deets taal 
5 Pe Oe 


flee ee ee 

Ee one mea 
ene ew 

" : Z Ose at 

or: - > att at eee 

=o . 
bth ddie-tindh-d ee 
-— Pee Se ap an ger 


piste Mieaine aie 
eg 
ith hepa 2 
Sedak pallentna state it akon ‘ 
diel oda ee 
S08 et er ney Be se we ee et 


age 


rte wPatigs 
Sin hinerem oe 
OF etns ~e 
iia 
e ‘ ib tidied. 5 ot ee 
Raat babe ee 
sinned ‘ i ees a ee 
anita ryan ‘= 
ae ah delet APs ; 
o- - > ss E Relies ae 
pst: Mac iie t Teel ; ‘ PSS eet ba 
Mictiioniiedh went tes ’ ie - 
M2 See ie ‘ 
hoth-cihsdih dati diacte teed ae cate a 


eine ene 
<a 

Ne Se we 

Pt ep ete a SR ee Stew 


oa 
SO Se a 
Reon Sat Tee ee 
lt a a 


ie a a 


wore 


A eB RP ap mat on 
ME nat ong 
candi “ iediaiiedieicsociomen 
pale eid ka ee Sa 
3 ee ee ee tee = 
a a 2 - Sana 
ee ee 
Te gee ater ge 
{ers et e Yee 


Pee cara ag ey, 
= Ses a a 


5 dicted ak 
Sette ee ae SF ee 


Se oe eens 
Bieiye grind ine ob 
a et ae ed 
Pe ee ogee ao ee 
Fe ete 
. : tS of nt oe of oP 
~ teeta ea ne amt 
dptivatiatibad cto 
: of ata te indi as 
. SOF A ea eae hap Rei oree, 
ae oe bie dar ’ peaipinieliaduaeede ate 
. a ee 2 
=o rf Site gett ata 
ee 2 
mS eee 
ye Sr ane 


0 ein: 

litte ahi Bi diesasgtte az 
i 

Se et eee = 


Stee e's 
as 


tiie xt te ok ee 
elas 


ee 
iiiuidededia Ie ae 
. Om ee oe 


plik Aer de pad ee wee 
Rac Set sacha ae es 
— 
ree cre 
RSE ee Poe ener ae ope egy “op 


I el F on atte wh ok nD 
NF enact en Tee fon Pam a 
See 
Pet tet ee 
Faia hdieaie eat aicals gle as 
Fat ae et ae ae 
ee ae 


SET a ne ete ers 
PE ee 


atta eateoae 


a ee 
lie at ee 


byival and ioc. 
biiaapedh pate ee 
SEM Stee dee sian 
- arteries “ 
Se ete te Sees fs 
POE 8 ee ae ate AS sere! 
. etic ta dediecdincd 


pied 
Saieelieliedian aon 


Tet fee aly 
SE Vie nna get ng 


en lige ap 
ge eager 
\eiiadindiiy dikciiadism,o 

ET meses 
eee . - 

cP ar at 

iekti tt ee 

SET DS tee Ss ee 


pie ets 
ery ee, 


pakke oon 


Winn iad ae ee 


SO tere 
en era = 
See Cost > Seip 


ae a Ed 


ees en) peririnn ig inee ng 
tee ee 
PO et rte 


“es 





a ae 
om ew et - 


PEO NT pram 






ae 
eorocicar sew 
Bike 
i308 


ibe 








ra. 
ao 
. 

it 7 
wu 
ns rae 
"4 


77 me iF 











r -_ iad Wh i Pe kt 

: . 7 ; 5 hae , oa © 

a i 4 he @e 2 ve ; if oa f 7.” 
fon PY vy : \ bs 7 : 7 : : 7 ¥ j 


—— 





e 
\ 
' 
_ 
is 
7 s 
—— 
a , an 
= mate 
LL 
= 
—_ 
a 
ss 
, 7 
7 a: 
2s 
os 
; 
oy 
eB) 
s _ 
aan 
ya? 
eg 
— > 
i or 
ae, 
ea 7 


; , " * ey » 4 ce 
A Awe 7 a b , Uh 
j ; ' \¥ i i iF , ie 
‘ rf Wit ee aly i 
j ) z vs j 
\ re a) : "kK : nate 












\ “a 7 ‘ ys i’? & Ls ; H 
wits | AP A atk ye eee 
y : { r f ‘. i , 7s ra A hal ae a) nA dj n a ' 
+4 ‘ee aul Vi iu at ee he ) Fe “os 
; OSPR aie p. os - a ., ht a et wert ;; : 
PA an Pe ; "J ; A he i heli He Pa : ae 
as 1 alt f ‘CK Pag, i "ie 4 i 
Y % a wy 4 : é ’ Tos + cy Pak Pa 14 ae oe eS | 
7 : (tae ae EY Hi ee ; wee 
: ~ ; - 7 via a o 7 ; a 
PMT eed ABO aN an ‘i 
‘ a > _ ‘ Pa aoa 7 oy E 7 " my v a ) yi ; 





bee yr: 
arta 


: M ty. Vi ‘ 
wu er 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/ohagavadgitaorso00edge 


17) : 
/ é 


i 1m lee b Rs A 
Katt Matton 












qn | 

a is 
MAF 25 1826 

r. So 

SS 






y 
“OL oeigar sew 


' THE BHAGAVAD GITA 
OR 
SONG OF THE BLESSED ONE 


INDIA’S FAVORITE BIBLE 


INTERPRETED BY 


FRANKLIN ‘EDGERTON 


Assistant Professor of Sanskrit in the University of Penn- 
sylvama; Joint Editor of the Journal of the Amer- 
ican Oriental Society; Fellow of the Ameri- 
can Academy of Arts and Sciences 


THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
CHICAGO 1925 LONDON 


COPYRIGHT BY 
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1925 


To the memory of my friend and colleague 
MORRIS JASTROW, JR. 


In grateful remembrance of his unselfish and 
unfailing friendship. 


Pen Ie 

| en | 
ts i 

¥ HA 


ae 


4 Weil 
” , 


aa ei ea? 


‘, te 


PLE 


" P Bua: et 
f sales 0 dbo haf 


UN es 
! nd 


a 
‘ F p AS ‘ ‘ : f , mh 
7 May oy ee ca a T ae (pir ” 7 i vai ae 7 

4 4 ey fm . me tag 1 wl els ™, My AK 
AS Stee ‘ en er “70.97 4 iy oe 
a a) , : Sul ok 
' 


N ea 4 
an =e J 
Phe can i Mi, 
I ‘ :: 


vee 





Contents 


PAGE 

POCO OLU Rin ers ec ep iret ene teks 2 cis ie aah ne SICILE GH oe aia ae aaa i 

PPOUNCia On Ore SACK TIFLVV OLUSs screcuceoerice ri ieee at Vv 

First Part: Preliminary Chapters 

CHAPTER PAGE 
TN TRODUGTOR Vellore a elas tee Win Ret VaR Male ncL pL 

eH E CORTCING DED In INDUL SPECULATION scce aeae veut 8 
III. THe UPpANISHADS, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES 

OFT ATERELUND Uy LAOUGH TOT Cie eee ne 17 

IV. PREHISTORY OF THE GOD OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA......- 30 

SECOND Part: The Teachings of the Bhagavad Gita 

Ve SOUT AN DOD Vd aw Ghee deee Sone g eee ee Danae Reb at 37 

Vee MAIN A TITRE ORY GOD fascia Beir nae ohne hamlity, Un Mn ie Pai 2 44 

PVE eA. OT TONGA NDB IN ESIR TE; cecigt sai is ooos ie ee e e hde ane nte 56 
VIII. THe Way oF KNOWLEDGE AND THE Way OF DISCIPLINED 

PN CTIUIT Va bape trer ely ia siti cr ibd is SR AUD Nr GR EES a ANY Sy 64 

PX L HEY VW AWIORS IEVOTIONSTO GOD. ort ca 2d eile s melas) 73 
X. ATTITUDE TOWARDS HINDU ORTHODOXY AND OTHER RELI- 

GIGUS* DELIEESIi cies, wails sere oe y a bale eee PR taratone 80 

A PE RACTICAT AMORA DIT Wiles tne cin tae etates Aa a) ease es 85 

Turrp Part: Summary and Conclusion 
PLT UEEOSTTMENARY Ge nen eet ee int ay etsy Met te RYO Sue TB 91 
en LCOS N CLUS IIN Gens ta cath ARR n ANT aie eae see cisl 95 


Appendix: On Some Translations and Methods of Interpreta- 
BONGO Ti tiren rita eee ee ai face e ers ene la Glaciol mee sieu ces 97 

ITMIOKEOTEVOLOS aN UU TECtS cir vs Aibiisiaa ey ciier cls adecek eure ay) 101 

PRE ORs asad eee SUA Rite Aline Ses ny aie kta hoe laces 104 


#2 L! AAT 
Rarities od rey 
: ‘ind “at La oF 





FOREWORD 


ALTHOUGH the Bhagavad Gita belongs in a peculiar sense to one 
sect of Vishnuites, the “Bhagavatas,” it is not unfair to call it the 
favorite sacred book of the Hindus as a whole. It is popular with 
them in every sense. Not to know it means among them almost what 
it would mean for an English-speaking person not to know the Bible. 
It has permeated the collective religious consciousness of the people, 
from one end of India to the other. Hence, it is very important for 
an understanding of Hindu culture, and especially of Hindu religion. 
And at the present moment the historic culture and religious thought 
of India ought to be a matter of great interest to the whole world, 
if only because of their relation to what is called the Gandhi move- 
ment. 

The remarkable personality of Mohandas Gandhi, and the popu- 
lar movement headed by him, have aroused among westerners more 
interest in India, perhaps, than has ever existed in the past. But it 
is not so well known, and therefore should be emphasized, that this 
movement is a thoroughly indigenous one, firmly rooted in the soil 
of India. That is, no doubt, one reason for its effective hold upon 
the people. Gandhi’s ideas and ideals, his principles and his prac- 
tice, are characteristically Hindu. Not that he is naively or bigotedly 
chauvinistic. He is highly educated in western as well as in Hindu 
thought and culture. He is also tolerant and broad-minded; he 
would certainly not claim for India a monopoly of truth. I think it 
unlikely that he has ever, either consciously or unconsciously, re- 
jected an idea because it originated in the west, or adopted one 
because it was native to India. He has, in fact, shown a marked 
ability to learn from any source; observers of his career have pointed 
out that his ideas have developed and altered materially in the course 
of years. But the striking thing in this development is that it has 
constantly tended towards a more and more complete identification 
with the highest forms of historic Hinduism. 


li FOREWORD 


I have no doubt that Mahatma Gandhi would decline to accept 
some doctrines expressed in the Gita. And any sectarian tag seems 
almost unworthy of his free and noble spirit. Yet he is a Vishnuite 
if he is anything sectarian. And in any case he certainly knows his 
Gita, and would be the first to acknowledge his debt to it. It would 
perhaps be a safe guess that no other work has had a larger influence 
on this great leader of present-day India. Certainly none has had a 
larger influence on the development of Hindu religious thought, 
of which the ‘Gandhi movement” is.a true child. This gives to the 
Gita a special interest and importance at the present moment. 

I hope that my book may be timely for yet another reason. There 
are in this country at present a number of religious sects of recent 
origin which derive many of their doctrines from Hinduism. Some 
of these sects revere the Bhagavad Gita almost or quite as much as 
do the Hindus themselves. And largely through their influence its 
name, at least, has become more or less familiar to wider circles. 
Both to the adherents of such sects, and to those wider circles, it 
may be of interest to discover what the Gita’s words mean to a pro- 
fessional Indologist. } 

To be sure, there are already in existence numerous translations 
of the Gita, both scholarly and popular, sectarian and non-sectarian. 
Two or three which I consider the most dependable are named in the 
Appendix to this book. But it is doubtful whether many persons 
who are not already familiar with Hindu thought would get much 
out of even the best possible translation of this work. It is unsys- 
tematic—one may fairly say helter-skelter—in its arrangement. It 
often contradicts itself, or at least seems to do so. And above all it 
presupposes a complete familiarity with many commonplaces of 
Hindu life and thought, which of course are by no means common- 
places to us. 

In this book, I have tried to let the Gita speak for itself as far as 
practicable. I have quoted from it extensively, and in particular 
have taken pains to set forth all its most important doctrines in its 
own words.* But its materials are arranged more systematically, 
and are set in a running comment of my own,—which I have tried to 
keep objective; I hope that I have usually suppressed my personal 
beliefs and prejudices. A historical background has been furnished, 
in the shape of a brief outline of the development of Hindu reli- 
gious thought from the earliest recorded times to the time of the 


*Or, more precisely, in English renditions of its words as I understand 
them. All quotations in this book kave been translated by me, except in one 
case, where credit is given to the translator quoted. 


FOREWORD ili 


Gita. This is designed to make clear the intellectual environment in 
which the Gita was produced. I hope that for these reasons my 
book may be a more satisfactory introduction to the Gita, and 
through it to Hinduism in general, than the original work or any 
translation. 
FRANKLIN EDGERTON. 
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. 





PRONUNCIATION OF SANSKRIT WorDS 


THE SPELLING of Sanskrit words used in this book has been par- 
tially simplified and adapted for English-speaking persons. 

No diacritical marks are used except the macron over long 
vowels ; this is printed over a, 7, and u when they are long, because 
it is sometimes important to know the length of vowels in order to 
determine the place of the accent. The vowels e and o are always 
long, and so, since the macron is unnecessary on them, it is usually 
omitted ; this custom I have followed. It is customary in this coun- 
try to accent the penult of Sanskrit words when the penult is long, 
otherwise the antepenult. A syllable is long if it contains a long 
vowel or diphthong, or if its vowel is followed by more than one 
consonant (as in Greek and Latin). The letter A when it occurs 
after another consonant (in all words used in this book) does not 
count as a consonant in determining the length of a syllable. 

The vowels are pronounced substantially as in German or Italian. 
The following are their approximate English equivalents : 

a4 == a in father 

a (short)==the same sound shortened** 
e (always long)== ay in way 

i==1 in machine 

i (short)==7 in pin 

0 (always long)= o in go 

ti= 4 in rule 

u (short) = u in full 


Diphthongs 
ai — di in aisle au = ou in loud 


The consonants as written in this book are to be pronounced for 
the most part as in English. Note that 7 = English 7, ch== English 
ch (as in church), sh = English sh. But g is always “hard,” as in 
English get (never “soft” as in gin). 

The letter h after another consonant (except c or s) is to be pro- 
nounced as an aspiration, separate from the preceding consonant. 
Thus bh is pronounced in a manner approaching the sound of bh in 
English abhor; th (not like English th in this or thin, but) in a man- 
ner approaching the sound of th in English anthill. 


** The Hindus of the present day pronounce short a nearly like English 7) 
in but. Some English-speaking people give it the sound of English a in man. 


4 


dy an : 
¥ SAW Ba 
, 


Ye ie w “ ay _ , 
14 56 

Pe hn 

ce } 


4 


a: aah ® 


if a 
8 


E, Aa r a, Wal ’ 
‘ Seale - ig aN Bory 
i Ges bes 
me at 


y ue lew 
Ae Palla ae) ihe 


en rg s ‘ AG wes ‘ys ya oH ae 
‘ ah ees es ad it Pid i penne 


ay . 


Tuk Lew CAdiebs b 
ry Awe Last eal 
wT 4 ‘cas ' 

‘ iia 

‘ee ¥. ii 


ibn a tas Stas 





PIikS TRARY 


PRELIMINARY CHAPTERS 


RN O's 
Me ' i 
ae tue i 
Sao 





CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTORY 


O MOST good Vishnuites, the Bhagavad Gita is what the New 

Testament is to good Christians. It is their chief devotional 
book. In it many millions of Hindus have for centuries found their 
principal source of religious inspiration. 


In form, it consists mainly of a long dialog, which is almost a 
monolog. The principal speaker is Krishna, who in his human 
aspect is merely one of the secondary heroes of the Mahabharata, 
the great Hindu epic. But, according to the Gita itself, he is in 
truth a manifestation of the Supreme Deity in human form. Hence 
the name—the Song (git@) of the Blessed One or the Lord (Bhaga- 
vad). ‘The other speaker in the dialog is Arjuna, one of the five 
sons of Pandu who are the principal heroes of the Mahabharata. 
The conversation between Arjuna and Krishna is supposed to take 
place just before the battle which is the main theme of the great epic. 
Krishna is acting as Arjuna’s charioteer. Arjuna sees in the ranks 
of the opposing army a large number of his own kinsmen and inti- 
mate friends. He is horror-stricken at the thought of fighting against 
them, and forthwith lays down his weapons, saying he would rather 
be killed than kill them. Krishna replies, justifying the fight on vari- 
ous grounds, the chief of which is that man’s real self or soul is 
immortal and independent of the body; it “neither kills nor is killed” ; 
it has no part in either the actions or the sufferings of the body. In 
response to further questions by Arjuna, he gradually develops 
views of life and destiny as a whole, which it is the purpose of this 
book to explain. In the course of the exposition he declares him- 
self to be the Supreme Godhead, and reveals to Arjuna, as a special 
act of grace, a vision of his mystic supernal form. All this appar- 
ently goes on while the two armies stand drawn up in battle array, 
waiting to attack each other. This dramatic absurdity need not con- 


2 CHAPTER I 


cern us seriously. It is clear that the Bhagavad Gita was not a part 
of the original epic narrative. It was probably composed, and cer- 
tainly inserted in its present position, by a later interpolator.t To 
be sure, he must have had in mind the dramatic situation in which 
he has placed the Gita, for he repeatedly makes reference to it. But 
these references are purely formal and external; they do not con- 
cern the essentials of the work. We must think of the Gita primar- 
ily as a unit, complete in itself, without reference to its surroundings. 
Its author, or whoever placed it in its present position, was interested 
chiefly in the religious doctrines to be set forth, not in external 
dramatic forms. 

This is not to say that the author was lacking in artistic power. 
He was, on the contrary, a poet of no mean capacity. Indeed, we 
must think of his work as a poem: a religious, devotional poem. Its 
appeal is to the emotions rather than to the intellect. It follows that 
in order to understand the Gita one must have a certain capacity 
for understanding its poetic, emotional point of view. One must be 
able and willing to adopt the poet’s attitude: to feel with him. I say, 
to feel with him: not necessarily to think with him. It is possible 
to understand and enjoy sympathetically a poetic expression of an 
emotional attitude without sharing the poet’s intellectual opinions. 
Philosophically speaking, the attitude of the Gita is mystical. A 
mystic would probably prefer to say that it appeals to the mystic 
intuition, rather than to the emotions, as I put it. That is a question 
of terms, or perhaps better of philosophic outlook. My mystic critic 
would at any rate agree that it does not appeal to the reasoning 
faculty of the mind. The “opinions” which it presupposes or sets 
forth are not so much “opinions” in the intellectual sense as emo- 
tional—or, let us say if you like, intuitional—points of view. They 
are not supported by logic; they are simply proclaimed, as immedi- 
ately perceived by the soul, or revealed by the grace of God. It is 
not my purpose to discuss their validity. That would indeed be 
futile. To the mystic they are above reason, to the rationalist below 
it; to both they are disconnected with it. Either you accept them 
immediately, without argument, or you do not. Argument will not 


1 Such interpolations are numerous in the Mahabharata; so numerous that 
we may fairly regard them as a regular habit. The great epic early attained 
such prestige among the Hindus that later authors were eager to win immor- 
tality for their works by framing them in so distinguished a setting. The 
author of the Bhagavad Gita merely followed a custom which was not only 
common, but seemed to the Hindu mind entirely natural and innocent. The 
Hindus of ancient times had little notion of what we consider the rights of 
authorship. To their minds any literary composition belonged to the world, not 
to its author. 


INTRODUCTORY 5) 


move you in either case. But even a convinced rationalist, if he has 
some power of poetic appreciation, can follow much of the Gita’s 
presentation with sympathy, the sort of sympathy which would be 
inspired in him by any exalted poetry. The Gita is poetic not only 
in formal expression, but in the ideas expressed. In both respects 
it may claim the attention of all but those who are so dominated by 
their opinions that they cannot appreciate noble ideas nobly expressed 
when they have a different intellectual background. 


The poetic inspiration found in many of the Gita’s thoughts? can 
hardly be fully appreciated unless they are presented in a poetic 
form. We are fortunate in having a beautiful English rendering by 
Sir Edwin Arnold, from which those who cannot read Sanskrit may 
get, on the whole, a good idea of the living spirit of the poem. It 
takes a poet to reproduce poetry. Arnold was a poet, and a very 
gifted one. My own function is that of an analytic commentator; a 
more humble function, but one which has its uses, particularly in 
the case of a work that was produced in a place and at a time so 
remote from us. 


This remoteness in time and scene makes exceptionally important 
one of the critic’s duties: that of making clear the historical setting of 
his author. As every author, even the most inspired of poets and 
prophets, is a product of his environment, so we cannot understand 
the Bhagavad Gita without knowing something of the ideas which 
flourished in its native land, during and before its time. It was 
composed in India, in Sanskrit, the ancient sacred and literary lan- 
guage of Brahmanic civilization. We do not know its author’s name 
(indeed, almost all the early literature of India is anonymous). Nor 
can we date it with any accuracy; all that we can say is that it was 
probably composed before the beginning of our era, but not more 
than a few centuries before it. We do know this: it was preceded 
by a long literary and intellectual activity, covering perhaps a thou- 
sand years, and reaching back to the hymns of the Rig Veda itself, 
the oldest monument of Hindu literature. And the Gita’s thoughts 
are rooted in those of this older literature. It’ was born out of the 
same intellectual environment; it expresses largely the same ideas, 
often in the same or similar language. It quotes from older works 
a number of stanzas and parts of stanzas. There are few important 
ideas expressed in the Gita which cannot be paralleled from more 
ancient works. Its originality of thought consists mainly in a dif- 


2 Not all of them; it must be confessed that the Gita is frequently common- 
place in both thought and expression. 


4 CHAPTER I 


ference of emphasis, in a fuller development of some inherited ideas, 
and in some significant omissions of ideas which were found in its 
sources. 

It is equally true, though less important for our purposes, that 
the Bhagavad Gita itself has had an enormous influence on later 
Hindu religious literature. It has even had some influence on Euro- 
pean and American literature of the last century, during which it 
became known to the western world. To mention one instance: a 
verse found in the Gita was imitated by Emerson in the first verse 
of his poem on “Brahma”: 


If the red slayer think he slays, 
Or if the slain think he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep, and pass, and turn again. 


Compare Bhagavad Gita 2, 19 (Arnold’s translation) : 


He who shall say, “Lo! I have slain a man!” 
He who shall think, “Lo! I am slain!” those both 
Know naught! Life cannot slay. Life is not slain! 


To be sure, this stanza is not original with the Gita; it is quoted 
from the Katha Upanishad. It is more likely, however, that Emerson 
got it from the Gita than from the less well-known Upanishad text. 
But the later influence of the Gita lies outside the scope of this vol- 
ume. I shall content myself with setting forth the thoughts of the 
Gita and their origins. 

Especially close is the connection between the Bhagavad Gita 
and the class of works called Upanishads. These are the earliest 
extensive treatises dealing with philosophical subjects in India. About 
a dozen of them, at least, are older than the Gita, whose author 
knew and quoted several. The Gita itself is sometimes regarded 
as an Upanishad, and has quite as good a right to the title as many 
later works that are so called.* All the works properly called Upani- 
shads have this, and only this, in common, that they contain mainly 
speculations on some or all of the following topics: the nature of 
the universe, its origin, purpose, and guiding principle; the nature 
of man, his physical and mental and spiritual constitution, his duty, 
his destiny, and his relation to the rest of the universe, particularly 
to the guiding principle thereof, whether conceived personally or 

8 The word upanishad may be translated “secret, mystic doctrine’; it is a 


title that is often claimed by all sorts of works, some of which hardly deserve 
to be called philosophical in any sense. 


INTRODUCTORY 5 


impersonally. Now, these are precisely the questions with which 
the Bhagavad Gita is concerned. The answers attempted vary 
greatly, not only in different Upanishads, but often in adjoining 
parts of the same Upanishad. This also is true of the Gita, and is 
eminently characteristic of the literature to which it and the Upani- 
shads belong. We often hear of a “system” of the Upanishads. In 
my opinion there is no such thing. Nor is there a “system” of thought 
in the Bhagavad Gita, in the sense of a unitary, logically coherent, 
and exclusive structure of philosophic thought. He who looks for 
such a thing in any work of this period will be disappointed. Or, 
worse yet, he may be tempted to apply Procrustean methods, and 
by excisions or strained interpretations to force into a unified mold 
the thoughts of a writer who never dreamed of the necessity or 
desirability of such unity. The Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita 
contain starts toward various systems; but none of them contains a 
single system, except possibly in the sense that one idea may be made 
more prominent than its rivals in an individual work or part of a 
work. Still less can we speak of a single system as taught by the 
Upanishads as a whole. 

The very concept of a philosophic “system” did not exist in India 
in the time of the early Upanishads and the Gita. In later times 
the Hindus produced various systems of philosophy, which are quite 
comparable with what we are accustomed to understand by that 
term. These systems all grew, at least in large measure, out of the 
older ideas found in the Upanishads. Each of the later thinkers 
chose out of the richness of Upanishadic thought such elements as 
pleased him, and constructed his logically coherent system on that 
basis. Thus, the Upanishads, broadly speaking, are the prime source 
of all the rival philosophies of later India. But they themselves are 
more modest. They do not claim to have succeeded in bringing 
under one rubric the absolute and complete truth about man and 
the universe. If they seem at times to make such claims, these state- 
ments are to be understood as tentative, not final; and often they 
are contradicted by an adjoining passage in which a very different 
view-point finds expression. This may seem to us naive. But I 
think it would be truer, as well as more charitable, to regard it as 
a sign of intellectual modesty, combined with an honest and burn- 
ing eagerness for truth. Again and again an Upanishadic thinker 
arrives at an intellectual apercu so lofty, so noble, that we might 
well forgive him for resting content with it. Instead, he abandons 
it, as it seems without hesitation and without regret, and straight- 


6 CHAPTER I 


way tries another approach to the same eternal problems. Some 
ideas recur more frequently than others; but no formula ever gives 
entire and permanent satisfaction to these restless thinkers. Is this 
to their discredit? 

Thus there grew up in Upanishadic circles not one but a group 
of attempts to solve the “riddles of the universe.” The Bhagavad 
Gita, we have seen, belongs to these circles intellectually, and many, 
if not most, of its ideas are derived from the older Upanishads. More 
important than this is the fact that it shares with them the trait 
of intellectual fluidity or tentativeness to which I have just referred. 
Unlike most of the later Hindu philosophic works, which also derive 
from the Upanishads but which select and systematize their mate- 
rials, the Gita is content to present various rival formulas, admit- 
ting at least a provisional validity to them all. To be sure, it has 
its favorites. But we can usually find in its own text expressions 
which, in strict logic, contradict its most cardinal doctrines. From 
the non-logical, mystical view-point of the Gita this is no particular 
disadvantage. Rationalistic logic simply does not apply to its 
problems. : 

In one other respect there is an important difference of funda- 
mental attitude between the Bhagavad Gita and most western philo- 
sophic thought. All Hindu philosophy has a practical aim. It seeks 
the truth, but not the truth for its own sake. It is truth as a means 
of human salvation that is its object. In other words, all Hindu 
philosophy is religious in basis. To the Hindu mind, “the truth shall 
make you free.’ Otherwise there is no virtue in it. This is quite 
as true of the later systems as of the early and less systematic specu- 
lations. To all of them knowledge is a means to an end. This atti- 
tude has its roots in a still more primitive conception, which appears 
clearly in the beginnings of Vedic philosophy and is still very much 
alive in the early Upanishads: the conception of the magic power 
of knowledge. To the early Hindus, as to mankind in early stages 
of development the world over, “knowledge is power” in a very 
direct sense. Whatever you know you control, directly, and by 
virtue of your knowledge. The primitive magician gets his neigh- 
bors, animal, human, or supernatural, into his power, by acquiring 
knowledge of them. So the early Vedic thinkers sought to control 
the most fundamental and universal powers by knowing them. This 
idea most Hindus of classical times never quite outgrew. The 
Sanskrit word vidya, “knowledge,” means also “magic.” Let west- 
erners not be scornful of this. Down to quite modern times the 


INTRODUCTORY 7 


same idea prevailed in Europe. In Robert Greene’s play, Friar 
Bacon and Friar Bungay, produced in England at the end of the six- 
teenth century, we find it in full force. Roger Bacon, the greatest 
of medieval English scholars, is there represented simply as a mighty 
magician, and a contest of scholarship between him and a rival 
German scholar resolves itself into a mere test of their powers in 
necromancy. In short, knowledge meant primarily magic power. 
No doubt Roger Bacon himself knew better. But he was an excep- 
tional man, intellectually far in advance of his time. The more 
advanced Hindu thinkers, also, kept their speculations free from 
magic, at least in its cruder forms. Even such a comparatively early 
work as the Bhagavad Gita has no traces of the magical use of 
knowledge for the attainment of trivial, worldly ends, though many 
such traces are still found in the Upanishads, its immediate prede- 
cessors. To this extent it marks an advance over them, and stands 
on essentially the same footing with the best of the later systematic 
philosophies. But the Bhagavad Gita and the later systems agree 
with the early Upanishadic thinkers in their practical attitude 
towards speculation. They all seek the truth, not because of its 
abstract interest, but because in some sense or other they think that 
a realization of the truth about man’s place in the universe and his 
destiny will solve all man’s problems; free him from all the troubles 
of life; in short, bring him to the summum bonum, whatever they 
conceive that to be. Just as different thinkers differ as to what that 
truth is, so they also differ in their definitions of salvation or of 
the summum bonum, and of the best practical means of attaining it. 
Indeed, as we have seen, the early thinkers, including the author of 
the Gita, frequently differ with themselves on such points. But 
they all agree in this fundamental attitude towards the objects of 
speculation. They are primarily religious rather than philosophical. 
And the historic origin of their attitude, in primitive ideas about 
the magic power of knowledge, has left a trace which I think was 
never fully effaced, although it was undoubtedly transcended and 
transfigured. 


CHAE EE hart 


THE ORIGINS OF HINDU SPECULATION 


HE records of Hindu religious thought, as of Hindu literature 

in general, begin with the Rig Veda. This is a collection consist- 
ing mostly of hymns of praise and prayer to a group of deities who 
are primarily personified powers of nature—sun, fire, wind, sky, and 
the like—with the addition of some gods whose original nature is 
obscure. The religion represented by the Rig Veda, however, is by 
no means a simple or primitive nature-worship. Before the dawn of 
history it had developed into a ritualistic cult, a complicated system 
of sacrifices, the performance of which was the class privilege of 
a guild of priests. In the hands of this priestly class the sacrificial 
cult became more and more elaborate, and occupied more and more 
the center of the stage. At first merely a means of gratification and 
propitiation of the gods, the sacrifice gradually became an end in 
itself, and finally, in the period succeeding the hymns of the Rig 
Veda, the gods became supernumeraries. The now all-important 
sacrifices no longer persuaded, but compelled them to do what the 
sacrificer desired ; or else, at times, the sacrifice produced the desired 
result immediately, without any participation whatsoever on the 
part of the gods. The gods are even spoken of themselves as offer- 
ing sacrifices; and it is said that they owe their divine position, or 
their very existence, to the sacrifice. This extreme glorification of 
the ritual performance appears in the period of the Brahmanas, 
theological text-books whose purpose is to expound the mystic mean- 
ing of the various rites. They are later in date than the Rig-Vedic 
hymns; and their religion, a pure and quasi-magical ritualism, is 
the apotheosis, or the reductio ad absurdum, of the ritualistic nature- 
worship of the hymns. 

Even in Rig-Vedic times the priestly ritual was so elaborate, and 
so expensive, that in the nature of things only rich men, mainly 
princes, could engage in it. It was therefore not only a hieratic but 
an aristocratic cult. The real religion of the great mass of the 
people was different. We find it portrayed best in the Atharva 
Veda. This is a collection of hymns, or rather magic charms, in- 


THE ORIGINS OF HINDU SPECULATION 9 


tended to accompany a vast mass of simpler rites and ceremonies 
which were not connected with the hieratic cult of the Rig Veda. 
Almost every conceivable human need and aspiration is represented 
by these popular performances. Their religious basis may be de- 
scribed as primitive animism, and their method of operation as sim- 
ple magic. That is, they conceive all creatures, things, powers, and 
even abstract principles, as animated by “spirits,” which they seek 
to control by incantations and magic rites. They know also the 
higher gods of the Rig-Vedic pantheon, and likewise other gods 
which perhaps belonged at the start to aboriginal, non-“Aryan” 
tribes (‘““Aryan” is the name which the Vedic Hindus apply to them- 
selves). But they invoke these gods after the manner of magic- 
mongers, much as medieval European incantations invoke the per- 
sons of the Trinity and Christian saints in connection with magic 
practices to heal a broken bone or to bring rain for the crops. 

Later Hindu thought developed primarily out of the hieratic, 
Rig-Vedic religion; but it contains also quite a dash of lower, more 
popular beliefs. The separation of the two elements is by no means 
always easy. The truth seems to be that the speculations out of 
which the later forms of thought developed were carried on mainly 
by priests, adherents of the hieratic ritual religion. Almost all the 
intellectual leaders of the community belonged to the priestly class. 
But they were naturally—almost inevitably—influenced more or less 
by the popular religion which surrounded them. Indeed, there was 
no opposition between the two types of religion, nor such a sharp 
cleavage as our description may suggest. The followers of the 
hieratic cult also engaged in many practices that belonged to the 
more popular religion. This accounts for the constant infiltration 
of ideas from the “lower” sphere into the “higher,’’ which we see 
going on at all periods. At times it is hard to decide whether a 
given new development is due to the intrusion of popular ideas, or 
to internal evolution within the sphere of the priestly religion itself. 

For we can clearly see the growth of certain new ideas within 
the Rig Veda itself. Out of the older ritualistic nature-worship, 
with its indefinite plurality of gods, arises in many Rig-Vedic hymns 
a new attitude, a sort of mitigated polytheism, to which has been 
given the name of henotheism. By this is meant a religious point 
of view which, when dealing for the moment with any particular 
god, seems to feel it as an insult to his dignity to admit the com- 
petition of other deities. And so, either the particular god of the 
moment is made to absorb all the others, who are declared to be 


10 CHAPTER II 


manifestations of him; or else, he is given attributes which in strict 
logic could only be given to a sole monotheistic deity. Thus various 
Vedic gods are each at different times declared to be the creator, 
preserver, and animator of the universe, the sole ruler of all crea- 
tures, human and divine, and so on. Such hymns, considered sep- 
arately, seem clearly to imply monotheism; but all that they really 
imply is a ritualistic henotheism. As each god comes upon the 
stage in the procession of rites, he is impartially granted this increas- 
ingly extravagant praise, until everything that could be said of all 
the gods collectively is said of each of them in turn, individually. 
We see that Vedic henotheism is rooted in the hieratic ritual, with- 
out which so strange a religious attitude could hardly have developed. 

Indeed, it was not long before some advanced thinkers saw that 
such things as the creation of the world and the rulership over it 
could really be predicated only of one Personality. The question 
then arose, how to name and define that One? We might have 
expected that some one of the old gods would be erected into a truly 
monotheistic deity. But, perhaps because none of them seemed suf- 
ficiently superior to his fellows, perhaps for some other reason, this 
was not done. Instead, in a few late hymns of the Rig Veda we 
find various tentative efforts to establish a new deity in this supreme 
position. Different names are given to him: “the Lord of Creatures” 
(Prajapati), “the All-maker” (Vishvakarman), and the like. As 
these names show, the new concept is rather abstract, and no longer 
ritualistic. Yet it is still personal. It is a God who creates, supports, 
and rules the world; a kind of Yahweh or Allah; not an impersonal 
First Cause. It is an attempt at monotheism, not yet monism. 

These starts toward monotheism remained abortive, in the sense 
that they did not, at least directly, result in the establishment of a 
monotheistic religion comparable to that of the Hebrew people. 
Many centuries were to pass before such religions gained any strong 
foothold in India; and the connection between them and these early 
suggestions is very remote and tenuous. The later religions owe 
their strength largely to other elements of more popular origin. Yet 
sporadic and more or less tentative suggestions of the sort continued 
to be made. 

More striking, and more significant for the later development of 
Hindu philosophy, is a movement towards monism which appears, 
along with the monotheistic movement, even in the Rig Veda itself, 
though only tentatively and very rarely. One or two Rig-Vedic 
hymns attempt to formulate the One in strictly impersonal, non- 


THE ORIGINS OF HINDU SPECULATION 11 


theistic terms. Among these I must mention the one hundred and 
twenty-ninth hymn of the tenth book of the Rig Veda, which to my 
mind is a very remarkable production, considering its time and 
place. This “hymn” (for so we can hardly help calling it, since 
it is found in the “hymn-book” of the Rig Veda) also seeks to 
explain the universe as evolving out of One; but its One is no longer 
a god. It knows no Yahweh or Allah, any more than the ritualistic 
Indra or Varuna. It definitely brushes aside all gods, not indeed 
denying their existence, but declaring that they are all of late and 
secondary origin; they know nothing of the beginnings of things. 
The First Principle of this hymn is “That One” (tad ekam). It is 
of neuter gender, as it were lest some theologian should get hold 
of it and insist on falling down and worshiping it. It is not only 
impersonal and non-theistic, but absolutely uncharacterizable and 
indescribable, without qualities or attributes, even negative ones. It 
was “neither existent nor non-existent.” To seek to know it is hope- 
less ; in the last two verses of the hymn (there are only seven in all) 
the author relapses into a philosophic scepticism which remains char- 
acteristic of Hindu higher thought in certain moods. While the 
later Upanishads often try to describe the One all-inclusively, by 
saying that it is everything, that it contains all possible and conceiv- 
able characteristics ; still in their deepest moments they too prefer 
the negative statement nett, neti*—‘it is not (this), it is not (that).” 
To apply to it any description is to limit and bound that which is 
limitless and boundless. It cannot be conceived; it cannot be known. 

But the ancient Hindu thinkers could never resign themselves tu 
this scepticism. Even if cold reason showed them at times that they 
could not, in the nature of things, know the Unknowable, still their 
restless speculation kept returning to the struggle again and again, 
from ever varied points of attack. In the Rig Veda itself, in one 
of its latest hymns (10.90), appears the first trace of a strain of 
monistic thought which is of the greatest importance for later Hindu 
philosophy: the universe is conceived as parallel in nature to the 
human personality. The First Principle in this hymn is called 
Purusha, that is, “Man” or “Person.” From the several parts of 
this cosmic Person are derived, by a still rather crude process of 
evolution, all existing things. The significance of this lies in its 
anticipation of the Upanishadic idea of the identity of the human 
soul (later called diman, literally “self,” as a rule) with the univer- 
sal principle. 

4 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 3.9.26, and in other places. 


12 CHAPTER II 


Other, later Vedic texts, especially the Atharva Veda, also con- 
tain speculative materials. They are extremely varied in character ; 
they testify to the restlessness and tentativeness which we have seen 
as a characteristic of all early Hindu thought. At times they seem 
monotheistic in tendency. The “Lord of Creatures,’ Prajapati, of 
the Rig Veda, appears again and again, as a kind of demiurge; and 
other names are invented for the same or a similar figure, such as the 
“Establisher,” Dhatar, or the “Arranger,” Vidhatar, or “He that 1s 
in the Highest,” Parameshthin. But never does such a figure attain 
anything like the definite dignity which we associate with a genuine 
monotheistic deity. And more often the thought centers around less 
personal, more abstract entities, either physical or metaphysical, or 
more or less both at once. The sun, especially under the mystic nante 
of Rohita, “the Ruddy One,” enjoys a momentary glory in several 
Atharva-Vedic charms, which invest him with the functions of a 
cosmic principle. Or the world is developed out of water; we are 
reminded of Thales, the first of the Greek philosophers. The wind, 
conceived as the most subtle of physical elements and as the “life- 
breath” (prana) of the universe, plays at times a like role, and by 
being compared with man’s life-breath it contributes to the develop- 
ment of the cosmic “Person” (Purusha) of the Rig Veda into the 
later Atman or Soul (of man) as the Supreme One. The word diman 
itself seems actually to be used in this way in one or two late verses 
of the Atharva Veda.5 The power of Time (kala), or of Desire 
(kama)—a sort of cosmic Will, reminding us of Schopenhauer—is 
elsewhere conceived as the force behind the evolution of the universe. 
Or, still more abstractly, the world-all is derived from a hardly 
defined “Support,” that is, a “Fundamental Principle” (skambha), 
on which everything rests. These and other shadowy figures flit 
across the stage of later Vedic speculation. Individually, few of 
them have enough definiteness or importance to merit much atten- 
tion. But in the mass they are of the greatest value for one who 
would follow the development of Hindu thought as a whole. 


Especially important is the eminently practical spirit which ani- 
mates all this speculation. As we saw in the first chapter, metaphysi- 
cal truth per se and for its own sake is not its object. Earnest and 
often profound though these thinkers are, they never lose sight for 
long of their practical aim, which is to control, by virtue of their 
superior knowledge, the cosmic forces which they study. That, I 
think, is why so many of their speculations are imbedded in the 

5 10.8.43, 44. 


THE ORIGINS OF HINDU SPECULATION 13 


Atharva Veda, a book of magic spells, which to our minds would 
seem the most inappropriate place possible. 

It might seem to follow from this that the speculative activity of 
this period belonged to the popular sphere represented by the religion 
of the Atharva Veda, more than to the ritualistic cult that was the 
heir of the Rig Veda. But I think there is evidence to the contrary. 
However appropriate to the spirit of the popular religion it seemed 
in some respects, this activity was carried on mainly by the priests 
of the hieratic ritual. And this fact, which for various reasons 
seems to me indubitable, finds a striking concrete expression in a 
philosophic concept produced in this period which deserves special 
consideration. 

Among all the varied formulations of the First and Supreme 
Principle, none recurs more constantly throughout the later Vedic 
texts than the brahman. The oldest meaning of this word seems to 
be “sacred utterance,” or concretely “hymn” or “incantation.” It is 
applied both to the ritual hymns of the Rig Veda and to the magic 
charms of the Atharva Veda. Any holy, mystic utterance is brah- 
man. ‘This is the regular, if not the exclusive, meaning which the 
word has in the Rig Veda. But from the point of view of those 
times, this definition implies far more than it would suggest to our 
minds. The spoken word had a mysterious, supernatural power; it 
contained within itself the essence of the thing expressed. To 
“know the name” of anything was to control the thing. The word 
means wisdom, knowledge; and knowledge, as we have seen, was 
(magic) power. So brahman, the “holy word,” soon came to mean 
the mystic power inherent in the holy word. 

But to the later Vedic ritualists, this holy word was the direct 
expression and embodiment of the ritual religion, and as such a 
cosmic power of the first magnitude. The ritual religion, and hence 
its verbal expression, the brahman, was omnipotent. All human 
desires and aspirations were accessible to him who mastered it. All 
other cosmic forces, even the greatest of natural and supernatural 
powers, were dependent upon it. The gods themselves, originally 
the beneficiaries of the cult, became its helpless mechanical agents, 
or were left out of account altogether as useless middlemen. The 
cult was the direct controlling force of the universe. And the 
brahman was the spirit, the expression, of the cult; nay, it was the 
cult, mystically speaking, because the word and the thing were one; 
he who knew the word, knew and controlled the thing. Therefore, 
he who knew the brahman knew and controlled the whole universe. 


14 CHAPTER II 


It is no wonder, then, that in the later Vedic texts (not yet in the 
Rig Veda) we find the brahman frequently mentioned as the primal 
principle® and as the ruling and guiding spirit of the universe. It is 
a thoroughly ritualistic concept, inconceivable except as an outgrowth 
of the theories of the ritualistic cult, but very simple and as it were 
self-evident from the point of view of the ritualists. The over- 
whelming prominence and importance of the brahman in later Vedic 
speculation seems, therefore, a striking proof of the fact that this 
speculation was at least in large part a product of ritualistic, priestly 
circles. If it shows a magic tinge suggestive of the popular rites 
and incantations, this simply means that the priests were also men, 
children of their times, and imbued with the ideas which prevailed 
among their people. 

Not content with attempts to identify the One, the Vedic thinkers 
also try to define His, or Its, relation to the empiric world. Here 
again their suggestions are many and varied. Often the One is a 
sort of demiurge, a Creator, Father, First Cause. Such theistic 
expressions may be used of impersonal monistic names for the One 
as well as of more personal, quasi-monotheistic ones. The One is 
compared to a carpenter or a smith; he joins or smelts the world into 
being. Or his act is like an act of generation; he begets all beings. 
Still more interestingly, his creative activity is compared to a sacri- 
fice, a ritual performance, or to prayer, or religious fervor (dhi, 
tapas). This obviously ritualistic imagery appears even in the Rig 
Veda itself, in several of its philosophic hymns. In the Purusha 
hymn, already referred to, the universe is derived from the sacri- 
fice of the cosmic Person, the Purusha; the figure is of the dismem- 
berment of a sacrificial animal; from each of the members of the 
cosmic Purusha evolved a part of the existing world. The perform- 
ers of this cosmogonic sacrifice are “the gods,’—inconsistently, of 
course, for the gods have already been declared to be secondary to 
the Purusha, who transcends all existing things. In later Vedic 
times we repeatedly meet with expressions suggesting such ritualistic 
lines of thought. They confirm our feeling that we are moving in 
hieratic circles. 

We see from what has just been said of the Purusha hymn that 
the One—here the Purusha, the cosmic “Person” or “Man’”—may 
be thought of as the material source (causa materialis) as well as 
the creator (causa efficiens) of the world. All evolves out of it, or 


6 “There is nothing more ancient or higher than this brahman,’ Shatapatha 
Brahmana, 10.3.5.11. 


THE ORIGINS OF HINDU SPECULATION 15 


is a part of it; but frequently, as in the Purusha hymn, it is more 
than all empiric existence; it transcends all things, which form, or 
derive from, but a part of it. Again, it is often spoken of as the 
ruler, controller, or lord of all. Or, it is the foundation, fundament, 
upon which all is based, which supports all. Still more significant 
are passages which speak of the One as subtly pervading all, as air 
or ether or space (Gkasha) pervades the physical universe, and ani- 
mating all, as the breath of life (prana) is thought of as both per- 
vading and animating the human body. 

Such ideas as the last mentioned lead to a deepening and spirit- 
ualizing of the concept of a parallelism between man, the microcosm, 
and the universe, the macrocosm, which as we have seen dates from 
late Rig-Vedic times. In the Purusha hymn of the Rig Veda we 
find a crude evolution of various parts of the physical universe from 
the parts of the physical body of the cosmic “Man.” But in the 
later Vedic texts the feeling grows that man’s nature is not accounted 
for by dissecting his physical body—and, correspondingly, that there 
must be something more in the universe than the sum total of its 
physical elements. What is that “something more” in man? Is it 
the “life-breath” or “life-breaths” (prana), which seem to be in and 
through various parts of the human body and to be the principle of 
man’s life (since they leave the body at death)? So many Vedic 
thinkers believed. What, then, is the corresponding “life-breath” of 
the universe? Obviously the wind, say some. Others think of it as 
the akasha, “ether,” or “space.” But even these are too physical, too 
material. On the human side, too, it begins to be evident that the 
“life-breath,” like its cosmic counterpart the wind, is in reality physi- 
cal. Surely the essential Man must be something else. What then? 
Flittingly, here and there, it is suggested that it may be man’s “de- 
sire” or “will” (kama), or his “mind” (manas), or something else 
of a more or less psychological nature. But already in the Atharva 
Veda, and with increasing frequency later, we find as an expression 
for the real, essential part of Man the word dGiman used. Atman 
means simply “self”; it is used familiarly as a reflexive pronoun, 
like the German sich. One could hardly get a more abstract term 
for that which is left when everything unessential is deducted from 
man, and which is at the same time the principle of his life, the liv- 
ing soul that pervades his being. And, carrying on the parallelism, 
we presently find mention of the dtman, self or soul, of the universe. 
The texts do not content themselves with that ; they continue to spec- 
ulate as to what that “soul” of the universe is. But these specula- 


16 CHAPTER II 


tions tend to become more and more free from purely physical ele- 
ments. Increasing partiality is shown for such metaphysical expres- 
sions as “the existent,’ or “that which is” (sat),” or again “the non- 
existent” (asat) ; in the Rig-Vedic hymn 10.129 we were told that 
in the beginning there was “neither existent nor non-existent,” but 
later we find both “the existent” and “the non-existent” used as 
expressions for the first principle. But perhaps the favorite formula 
in later Vedic times for the soul of the universe is the originally 
ritualistic one of the brahman. 

This parallelism between the “self” of man and the “self” of 
the universe is still only a parallelism, not yet an identity. But we 
are now on the eve of the last and the boldest step, which it remained 
for the thinkers of the early Upanishads to take: that of declaring 
that the soul of man ¢s the soul of the universe. 


7 Compare the Greek 76 3» or 7d Syrws by, “that which (really) 1s,” and, tor 
a less exact parallel, the Kantian Ding an sich. 


Crear LER a ITt 


THE UPANISHADS, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF LATER 
Hinpu THOUGHT 


HE Upanishads are the earliest Hindu treatises, other than sin- 

gle hymns or brief passages, which deal with philosophic sub- 
jects. They are formally parts of the Veda,®’—the last offshoots of 
Vedic literature. The dry bones of the Vedic ritual cult rattle about 
in them in quite a noisy fashion at times, and seriously strain our 
patience and our charity. But they also contain the apotheosis, the 
New Testament, of Vedic philosophy. In them the struggling specu- 
lations which we have briefly sketched in the last chapter reach their 
highest development. They do not, be it noted, receive any final, 
systematic codification. That came much later. They are still ten- 
tative, fluid, and, one may fairly say, unstable; they are frequently 
inconsistent with each other and with themselves. They contain no 
system, but starts toward various different systems. Later Hindu 
thought utilized these starts and developed them into the various 
systematic philosophies of later times—Sankhya, Vedanta, and the 
rest. In fact, there are few important ideas of later Hindu philo- 
sophical or religious thought which are not at least foreshadowed in 
the Upanishads. They are the connecting link between the Veda 
and later Hinduism; the last word of the one, the prime source of 
the other. 

In this chapter, I wish to deal with the Upanishads mostly from 
the latter point of view: to show how they reveal the early stages 
of the fundamental postulates of later Hindu thought. While the 
views reproduced in this chapter are all found in the early Upani- 
shads (except where the contrary is stated), we also find in them 

8 At least the older and more genuine ones are that; we may ignore for our 


present purpose the numerous late and secondary works which call themselves 
Upanishads. 


18 CHAPTER III 


expressions of quite different views, which approach much more 
closely the older Vedic speculations. The relation of the Upani- 
shads to those earlier speculations may, in general, be described by 
saying that while the Upanishads carry their inquiries along essen- 
tially the same lines, and are actuated by the same underlying idea 
of the mystic, magic power of knowledge, their thoughts become 
increasingly anthropocentric and less cosmo-physical or ritualistic. 
Explanations of the cosmic absolute in purely physical terms, and 
speculations about the esoteric meaning of ritual entities, while they 
still occur, are less prominent; speculations on the nature and fate 
of man, and explanations of the universe in human or quasi-human 
terms, increase in frequency. Thus one of the most striking ideas 
in the Upanishads is that the human soul or self 1s the Absolute 
(“that art thou” ;® “I am Brahman” ;?° “it [the universal Brahman] 
is thy self, that is within everything” ;1* “that which rests in all 
things and is distinct from all things, which all things know not, of 
which all things are the body [that is, the material representation or 
form], which controls all things within, that is thy self [atman], the 
immortal Inner Controller’*). All that is outside of this Self is 
at times conceived as created by, or emitted from, It (as in dreams 
the Self seems to create a dream-world and to live in it).1% At other 
times the sharp line drawn between the Self and material nature, 
that is all that is not Self, is made to preclude any genetic relation 
between the two."* 

In any case, the attention of the Upanishadic thinkers is more 
and more centered upon the human soul. Other things are impor- 
tant as they are related to it. And—while its origin and past history 
remain objects of interest—we find an increasing amount of atten- 
tion paid to its future fate. The practical purpose of speculation 
reasserts itself emphatically in the question, how can man control 


® Chandogya Upanishad 6.8.7, etc. 

10 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10, etc. 

11 [bid., 3.4.1. 

12 [bid., 3.7.15. 

13 [bid.. 4.3.10. According to several Upanishad passages the soul performs 
this creative act by a sort of mystic, quasi-magic power, sometimes called mayd, 
that is, “artifice”; it is a word sometimes applied to sorcery, and to tricks and 
strategems of various kinds. The Bhagavad Gita similarly speaks of the Deity 
as appearing in material nature by His maya, His mystic power. This does not 
mean (in my opinion; some scholars take the contrary view) that the world out- 
side of the self is illusory, without real existence, as the later Vedanta phil- 
osophy maintains; mdayd, I think, is not used in the Vedantic sense of “world- 
illusion” until many centuries later. 

14 Thus foreshadowing the later dualistic systems, such as Sankhya and 
Yoga, which recognize matter and soul as two eternal and eternally independ- 
ent principles—a doctrine which is familiarly accepted in the Bhagavad Gita. 


UPANISHADS ; FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF HINDU THOUGHT 19 


his own destiny? What is man’s summum bonum, and how shall 
he attain it? It is out of such questions and the answers to them 
that the basic postulates of later Hindu thought develop. 


In early Vedic times the objects of human desire are the ordinary 
ones which natural man seeks the world over: wealth, pleasures, 
power over his fellows, long life, and offspring; and finally, since 
death puts an end to the enjoyment of all these, immortality. 
Immortality, however, can only be hoped for in a future existence, 
since all life on this earth is seen to end in death. So the Vedic 
poets hope for some sort of heavenly and eternal life after death. 
But presently they begin to be uneasy lest perchance death might 
interfere with that future life, also. The fear of this ‘“‘re-death” 
becomes, in what we may call the Middle Vedic period (the Brah- 
manas), a very prominent feature. Combined with this is the grow- 
ing belief in the imperishability of the aGtman, the Self or Soul, the 
essential part of the living being. These two ideas are not mutually 
contradictory. Death remains, as a very disagreeable experience— 
no less disagreeable if it must be undergone more than once—even 
though it does not destroy the Soul but only brings it over into a 
new existence. What pleasure can man take in wealth, power, and 
offspring, if this sword of Damocles is constantly hanging over him, 
threatening to deprive him of all, and to launch him upon some new 
and untried existence? Moreover, that future existence may be no 
better than the present one. Possibly under the influence of popular 
animism, which sees “souls” similar to the human soul in all parts 
of nature, the future life is brought down from heaven to this earth. 
And so, in the early Upanishads, we find quite definite statements 
of the theory of rebirth or transmigration, which was to remain 
through all future time an axiom to practically all Hindus. Accord- 
ing to this, the Soul is subject to an indefinite series of existences, 
in various material forms or “bodies,” either in this world or in vari- 
ous imaginary worlds. The Bhagavad Gita expresses this universal 
Hindu belief in the form of two similes. It says that one existence 
follows another just as different stages of life—childhood, young 
manhood, maturity, and old age—follow one another in this life.*S 
Or again, just as one lays off old garments and dons new ones, so 
the Soul lays off an old, worn-out body and puts on a new one.?® 
One of the oldest Upanishads uses the simile of a caterpillar, which 
crawls to the end of a blade of grass and then “gathers itself to- 


15 2.13. 
x62 22. 


20 CHAPTER III 


gether” to pass over to another blade of grass; so the Soul at death 
“gathers itself together” and passes over to a new existence.” 


The Upanishads also begin to combine with this doctrine of an 
indefinite series of reincarnations the old belief in retribution for 
good and evil deeds in a life after death; a belief which prevailed 
among the people of Vedic India, as all over the world. With the 
transference of the future life from a mythical other world to this 
earth, and with the extension or multiplication of it to an indefinite 
series of future lives more or less like the present life, the way was 
prepared for the characteristically Hindu doctrine of “karma” (kar- 
man) or “deed.” This doctrine, which is also axiomatic to the 
Hindus, teaches that the state of each existence of each individual 
is absolutely conditioned and determined by that individual’s moral- 
ity in previous existences. A man is exactly what he has made him- 
self and what he therefore deserves to be. An early Upanishad says: 
“Just as (the Soul) is (in this life) of this or that sort; just as it 
acts, just as it operates, even so precisely it becomes (in the next 
life). If it acts well it becomes good; if it acts ill it becomes evil. 
As a result of right action it becomes what is good; as a result of 
evil action it becomes what is evil.”?® In short, the law of the con- 
servation of energy is rigidly applied to the moral world. Every 
action, whether good or bad, must have its result for the doer. If 
in the present life a man is on the whole good, his next existence 
is better by just so much as his good deeds have outweighed his evil 
deeds. He becomes a great and noble man, or a king, or perhaps 
a god (the gods, like men, are subject to the law of transmigration). 
Conversely, a wicked man is reborn as a person of low position, or 
as an animal, or, in cases of exceptional depravity, he may fall to 
existence in hell. And all this is not carried out by decree of some 
omnipotent and sternly just Power. It is a natural law. It oper- 
ates of itself just as much as the law of gravitation. It is therefore 
wholly dispassionate, neither merciful nor vindictive. It is abso- 
lutely inescapable; but at the same time it never cuts off hope. A 
man is what he has made himself; but by that same token he may 
make himself what he will: The soul tormented in the lowest hell 
may raise himself in time to the highest heaven, simply by doing 
right. Perfect justice is made the basic law of the universe. It 
seems hardly possible to conceive a principle of greater moral gran- 
deur and perfection. 


17 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.3. 
18 [bid., 4.4.5. 


’ 


UPANISHADS ; FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF HINDU THOUGHT 21 


The Upanishads go farther than this in anticipating later Hindu 
views of the Soul’s progress. One of the earliest of them contains 
this passage: “This Spirit of Man consists simply of desire. As is 
his desire, so is his resolve; as is his resolve, so is the deed (karman) 
that he does; as is the deed that he does, so is that (fate) which he 
attains unto.” ?® The root of action, and so the determining cause 
of man’s future fate, is his “desire.” It follows that if man’s desires 
can be properly regulated, he can be led to his true goal. This 
remains a fundamental tenet of later Hinduism. 

It might seem that the glorification of the Soul as the center of 
the universe should be a comforting and inspiring thought. And, 
indeed, the Upanishads and later Hindu works describe the perfec- 
tions of the Soul in inspiring and even ecstatic terms. But the prac- 
tical effect of all this upon the Hindu attitude towards our present 
life was just the opposite. It only served to emphasize the contrast 
between the Soul and all that is not Soul, that is, all material or 
empiric existence. “Whatever is other than That (the Soul) is 
evil,” says an early Upanishad.?° Soon this crystallizes into a defi- 
nitely and thoroughly pessimistic view of life. All existence, in the 


‘ordinary empiric sense, is inherently worthless and base and evil. 


Pleasures are both transitory and illusory. Death is not only an 
evil in itself, which threatens us at every moment, but also it leads 
only to further existence, that is, to further misery. True joy and 
peace can only be found in the Self. 

Accordingly, the perfected man is he “whose desire is the Soul, 
whose desire is satisfied, who has no desire” (other than the ma 
that is, who is free from ordinary, worldly desires),?4 who “i 
beyond desire, has dispensed with evil, knows no fear, is free aie 
sorrow. 7? As long as a man is affected by desire (other than the 
desire for the Soul’s perfection, which, as just indicated, is the same 
as having no desire), this leads him to “resolve” and to “action,” 
which must have its fruit in continued material existence; and all 
material existence is evil. 

The estate of this perfected man is most commonly described as 
attainment of, going to, or union with the One—which may be called 
Brahman, or the Atman (the Self or Soul), or some synonym. It 


19 Tbid., 4.4.5, 

20 [bid., 3.4.2. 

21 Which are defined by the Buddhists as including (1) desire for sensval 
pleasures, (2) desire for continued existence (in other incarnations), and (3) 
desire tor prosperity in this Sa abi This classification may be regarded as 
typical for Hindu systems in general 

22 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, 4.46; 4.3.22. 


22 CHAPTER III 


is not non-existence, according to the Upanishads ; for the soul is im- 
mortal, and cannot cease to be. It is sometimes even declared to be a 
conscious state; but this is immediately qualified by saying that 
though the soul still has the faculties of seeing, knowing, and so on, 
there is no object for these faculties to act upon, so that after all it 
is to all intents and purposes a state of unconsciousness.** As the 
soul is one with the universal subject, than which there is then no 
other, there can be no object, and hence no activity of the senses 
or mental faculties. So at other times the texts plainly say “there 
is no consciousness after death (for the perfected soul).”** They 
conceive it as similar to the state of deep and dreamless sleep, which 
is indeed at times thought of as a temporary union with the One, 
and so a foretaste of that perfected condition.”®> It is natural that 
such a state should be associated with bliss; for while the waking 
man has no recollection of consciousness or anything else as having 
existed in sound sleep, still he awakes from it feeling refreshed and 
often with a vague impression of having been in some sort of remote 
and happy state. At any rate, the Upanishads leave no doubt that 
there is in this union with the One a total cessation of desires, of 
evil, of sorrow—in short, of ordinary, empiric, worldly existence, 
which is characterized by desires, evil, and sorrow. But not con- 
tent with that, they describe it as a state of pure and ecstatic bliss, 
infinitely surpassing all human joys, indeed far exceeding the power 
of mind to conceive it.?° 


Later Hindu religions and philosophies call this state by the well- 
known name of nirvana. The word does not occur in the early 
Upanishads; but the idea is there. Nirvana means “extinction,” 
originally of a fire or flame; then of the flames of desire, as the cause 
of continued rebirth. To some later sects, such as the Buddhists, it 
means also literal extinction of life, of existence in any form; for 
Buddhism, in its original form, denies the existence of either world- 
soul or individual soul. Yet even in Buddhist texts nirvana is de- 
scribed as a state of blissful ecstasy; so firmly established was this 
mode of thought. It also makes no difference if, with the later 
Sankhya, one denies the world-soul and merely conceives the per- 
fected individual souls as existing separately, independent of each 
other and of matter; still the same descriptions are used. All the 
later variations in metaphysical theory (some of them found already 
in the Upanishads) make no difference in the concept of the per- 


28 Ibid., 4.5.15; 4.3.23ff. 25 Ibid., 4.3. 19ff. 
24 Ibid., 4.5.13. 36 Tbid., 4.3.32, 33. 


UPANISHADS ; FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF HINDU THOUGHT 23 


fected state as a kind of pure and—so to speak—unconscious con- 
sciousness, and transcendent bliss. The Bhagavad Gita uses the 
word nirvana several times, generally in the compound brahmanir- 
vana, “extinction in Brahman,” or “the extinction which is Brah- 
man.” More commonly it uses vaguer terms to describe the goal 
which means salvation—such expressions as perfection,” “the 
highest goal,” “the supreme state,” or “My (God’s) estate.” Or it 
simply says “he attains Me (God),” or “he attains Brahman” ; that 
is, the perfected man becomes united with God or with Brahman. 
Details as to the nature of that state are wholly wanting in the Gita, 
if we except such vague expressions as “that highest state of Mine, 
to which having gone one does not return, is not illumined by sun 
or moon or fire” ?’—implying that it shines by its own light. We 
get no idea of how the Gita conceived the state of a man who had 
gained this position. All that seems clear is that it was conceived 
as some sort of real existence, not as total and absolute annihilation. 


The way to attain this state of perfection, as to attain anything 
else, is, according to the usual Upanishad doctrine, by true knowl- 
edge. Knowledge is the magic talisman that opens all doors. He 
who knows anything, controls it; and so, he who knows the supreme 
truth, thereby becomes master of it, and gains the highest state. “He 
who knows that supreme Brahman, unto Brahman he goes.” ? 
Similar expressions appear constantly throughout the whole Upani- 
shad literature. This comes as near as anything to being a universal 
doctrine of the Upanishads. It is furthermore a doctrine which is 
of fundamental importance in all later Hindu thought. All the later 
systems make it their prime business to point the way to human sal- 
vation ; and one may say in general that their methods are primarily 
and originally intellectual, or, perhaps better, intuitive. They teach 
that man shall be saved through the realization of the supreme truth. 
In their formulations of that truth they differ, of course, among 


themselves; that is the reason for the plurality of systems. But 
they usually state, or at least imply, the omnipotence of knowledge; 
and conversely they usually emphasize the fact that ignorance 
(avidy@) is the root of evil. Characteristic of them all is the Bud- 
dhist formula, which says that ignorance is the cause of desire; 
desire leads to action; and action must have its fruit, as we have 
seen, in continued existence, all of which is evil. 


2715.6. 
28 Mundaka Upanishad, 3.2.9; Kaushitaki Upanishad, 1.4. 


24 CHAPTER III 


Even good deeds are still deeds, and must have their fruit, 
according to the doctrine of “karma.” And to attain the summum 
bonum man must get rid of all deeds, of all karma. Therefore, 
while most if not all Hindu systems teach a practical morality, they 
also teach that no degree of morality, however perfect, can lead to 
final salvation. In this, too, they are anticipated by the Upanishads. 
The perfect soul is “beyond good and evil.” ?® Neither good nor 
evil can affect him. At times the Upanishads seem even to say or 
imply that when a man has attained enlightenment, he can do what 
he likes without fear of results. This somewhat dangerous doctrine 
is, however, not typical, and is probably to be regarded only as a 
strained and exaggerated expression of the idea that the truly en- 
lightened soul cannot, in the very nature of things, do an evil deed. 
If he could, he would not be truly enlightened ; for “he who has not 
ceased from evil conduct cannot attain Him (the Atman) by intel- 
ligence.’”’ °° This is similar to the Socratic notion that the truly wise 
man must inevitably be virtuous. The difference is that the Upani- 
shads regard even virtue, as well as vice, as transcended by perfect 
knowledge; the possessor thereof passes beyond both, and rises to 
a plane on which moral concepts simply have no meaning. Morality 
applies only in the world of karma, the world of ordinary empiric 
existence, which the enlightened man has left behind him. In the 
final state of the perfected man, as we have seen, there can be, 
strictly speaking, no action; so how can there be either moral or 
immoral action? The attitude of the Upanishads, and following 
them of most later Hindu systems, is then that morality has only a 
negative importance, and in the last analysis none whatever, in man’s 
struggle for salvation. Immorality is a sign of imperfection; it can 
only be due to the prevalence in the soul of ignorance, causing desire, 
leading to action and rebirth. It must be got rid of. But it will fall 
away of itself with the attainment of true wisdom. And no amount 
of good deeds will bring that wisdom which alone can lead to release. 
Good deeds result in less unhappy existences, but that is all; salva- 
tion is release from all empiric existence. This does not prevent the 
teaching of a system of practical ethics, for the guidance of those 
who have not yet attained enlightenment. In actual practice, most 
Hindu sects inculcate very lofty moral principles ; and many of them 
devote much attention thereto. But theoretically, at least, such things 
do not concern their fundamental aims. 

29 Kaushitaki Upanishad, 1.4; compare Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, 4.3.22, 


c 
80 Katha Upanishad, 2.24. 


UPANISHADS ; FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF HINDU THOUGHT 25 


Yet at times morality is spoken of as if it had a positive, if only 
qualified, value in preparing the soul for the reception of enlighten- 
ment. The fact is that the strictly intellectual or intuitional position 
is hard for the ordinary man to master. He needs the encourage- 
ment of more concrete aims, or helps toward the final aim. Many 
of the later sects recognize this, either implicitly or explicitly, and 
so do not hold strictly to the position that “knowledge,” that is, 
immediate perception of the metaphysical truth, is the sole and exclu- 
sive means of salvation. Even the Upanishads do not quite do this, 
though they come closer to it than many later systems. Despite the 
popular and even primitive background of their intellectualism, its 
relation to the old idea of the magic power of knowledge, the specu- 
lation of the Upanishads in its highest forms reached a point which 
must have placed it out of touch with the mentality of most of the 
people. “Knowledge” of the abstract truth about the Soul proves 
a very different matter from “knowledge” of the things which are 
the ordinary aims of magic, when the human mind tries to grasp it. 
Any man can “know” the “name” of his enemy, or of the disease 
which afflicts him, and by that “knowledge” can seek to cast a spell 
over them. But only a rare thinker can “know” the absolute meta- 
physical Truth, so that it is an ever-present illumination of his whole 
being,®? and this is what he must do in order to have the true “knowl- 
edge” that brings control of his own soul, of his destiny—the “nowl- 
edge” that means salvation. For ordinary human nature, there is 
needed a process of education, of discipline, which shall lead up to 
this enlightenment. Various sects make use of morality in this way, 
as a preliminary help. It purifies the soul and prepares it for enlight- 
enment. Many Upanishad passages imply such a position, at least 
by saying that the wicked cannot hope for true knowledge—even 
though other passages speak of knowledge as a sort of magic power 
by which one “sloughs off sin, as a snake sloughs off its skin.” *? 

There are other preliminary steps or practices which various 
sects regard as useful in preparing the soul for the reception of the 
enlightenment which will finally bring release. And in some of the 
later Hindu sects these preliminary steps become so prominent that 
they obscure, or almost obliterate, what was originally the true goal 
—the attainment of metaphysical knowledge. Of these avenues of 


81 “By a rare chance may a man see It (the Soul) ; by a rare chance like- 
wise may another declare It; and by a rare chance may another hear It. But 
even when he has heard It, no one whatsoever knows It.” Bhagavad Gita, 2.29; 
quoted from Katha Upanishad, 2.7. 

82 Prashna Upanishad, 5.5. 


26 CHAPTER III 


approach to knowledge, which however occasionally lead off into 
seductive bypaths, the chief, in addition to righteous conduct, are 
two. One is devotion to the personality of some god or prophet, 
who is regarded as a kind of personal savior or helper on the way to 
salvation. The other is the practice of asceticism in some form or 
other, regarded as an approach to a state of inaction (and so to the 
ideal, since all actions lead to rebirth), and also as helping to prepare 
for enlightenment by freeing the individual from attachment to the 
world, by gradually conquering the natural desires of the flesh. 


The first of these two secondary methods, as we may call them, 
plays a very small role in the older Upanishads. The Upanishads 
recognize no prophet who could occupy the place which the Buddha 
holds for his followers as a personal Savior, quite analogous to the 
places of Jesus and Mohammed in Christianity and Islam. And most 
of them, particularly the earliest, do not think of the One—Brahman, 
or Atman, or the Existent, or whatever they call It—in sufficiently 
personal terms to make it easy to think of It as exercising grace in 
saving men, or as the object of any very personal devotion on the 
part of men. But for the Bhagavad Gita, which is frankly mono- 
theistic,** the case is very different; and we shall find that in it the 
“grace of God” is repeatedly spoken of as singling out His elect and 
bringing them to salvation by His divine choice. And no means for 
attaining salvation is more emphasized in the Gita than bhakti, “de- 
votion” to God, or fervent love of Him. Originally, no doubt, this 
devotion was to lead to knowledge, intellectual enlightenment, and 
so to release. But the intermediate step is often lost sight of in the 
Gita and in similar later works; they not infrequently think of 
ecstatic love of God as leading immediately to absorption in Him, 
which is their conception of salvation. It is interesting to note, then, 
that even this position, contrary though it is to the usual spirit of 
the Upanishads, finds expression in them, and precisely in two of 
them which were pretty certainly known to the author of the Gita. 
One speaks of enlightenment as coming “by the grace of God,” and 
recommends “devotion” (bhakti) to Him as a means for attaining 
it.2* The other speaks of “beholding the greatness of the Soul 

83 This is certainly a reasonable statement in dealing with a work in which 
the principal speaker is represented as an incarnation of the Supreme Deity; 
although there are not wanting in the Gita, as we shall see in Chapter VI, pas- 


sages in which the First Principle seems to be spoken of in impersonal, monistic 
terms. 

84 Shvetashvatara Upanishad, 6.21, 23. This is a comparatively late Upani- 
shad, probably not much older than the Gita; there are various good reasons for 
believing that it was known to the Gita’s author. 


UPANISHADS ; FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF HINDU THOUGHT 27 


(dtman) by the grace of the Creator (dhatar),” *5 and shortly after 
this the same text, not even using the term ‘‘Creator” or “God,” or 
any other personal expression for the Supreme, says that “this Soul 
(dtman; here the Universal Soul) is not to be attained by instruction, 
by intellect, or by much holy learning; He is to be attained only by 
him whom He chooses; for him He reveals His own form.” *° 

The other “secondary method” of gaining enlightenment, the 
method of withdrawal from the world by some form of asceticism, 
is more complicated in its history. In the oldest periods of Vedic 
speculation we hear much of a concept called tapas. Already in the 
great monistic hymn of the Rig Veda, 10.129, the One is produced 
out of the primal chaos by the power of tapas. The word means 
literally “heat,” and in cosmogonic connections it undoubtedly sug- 
gests the creative warmth that is symbolized by the brooding of a 
bird over its eggs. The idea of the development of the universe out 
of a cosmic egg appears not infrequently in early Hindu cosmogonies, 
and with it is clearly associated the idea of tapas, warmth, as a force 
of cosmic evolution. But in religious language the same word had 
the figurative meaning of “religious, devotional fervor.” It is the 
inspiration of the priest or holy man. It was thus nearly related to 
the concept of brahman, the holy word as the quintessence of reli- 
gious spirit. It is possible that it had a partly physical conpotation 
in this sense, too; the religious fervor probably was sometimes 
brought on or increased by physical exertion; and even the sacrificial 
ritual itself, being performed over the sacred fire, resulted in literal, 
physical “heat’’ for the officiating priests (the texts refer to this spe- 
cifically). For these various reasons the power of tapas, “warmth” 
or “fervor,” is prominently mentioned in early Vedic cosmogonies as 
a cosmic force. Sometimes it is made a sort of First Principle itself. 
More often the Creator is spoken of as “exercising tapas” in creating 
the universe. 

But about the time of the early Upanishads the word tapas began 
to acquire a new connotation. From this period seems to date the 
development in India of a recognized class of hermits or monks, men 
who renounced the world and lived a life devoted to meditation or 
some form of asceticism. The prominence of such people in later 
India is well known. They do not appear clearly in the early Vedic 
texts; and their appearance in large numbers is certainly related 
to the growth of world-weariness among the Hindu intellectuals, 


35 Katha Upanishad, 2.20. The Gita has several verbal quotations from 
this Upanishad. 
86 [bid., 2.23. 


28 CHAPTER III 


which accompanied and signalized the general views of life outlined 
in this chapter. If all ordinary life is vanity and vexation of spirit, 
and the only hope of salvation lies in knowledge of the Soul, which 
is to be attained through mystic contemplation, naturally the intelli- 
gent man will be inclined to turn his back on the world and devote 
himself to a more or less hermit-like existence. There are, moreover, 
very special reasons for asceticism. Actions lead to rebirth; so 
inaction, or the nearest possible approach to it, withdrawal from the 
world, is desirable. Furthermore, as we have seen, desires are the 
root of evil, because they enchain man to the things of this life, and 
distract his attention from his true goal. He must, therefore, seek 
to overcome his desires. One way of doing this is to avoid the 
objects of desire as much as possible, by living a solitary life, prefer- 
ably in the wilderness. Another way is by positive acts of self- 
repression, even self-torture, to “mortify the flesh” and reduce it to 
subjection. Another is by means of self-hypnosis to induce a state 
of trance, or half-trance, in which one may attain nearly complete, 
if only temporary, freedom from the distractions of the world, and 
a sort of approach to the “unconscious consciousness” of union with 
the One. All of these varying forms of ascetic austerities have been 
more or less practised by many Hindu sects, sometimes in very 
extreme forms. They are all included under the concept of tapas, 
“heat, fervor,” as it is used in the Upanishads and later. As so used 
the word contains both a physical and a spiritual connotation. Physi- 
cal, in that many ascetics engaged in often very strenuous exertions, 
or deliberately subjected themselves to the heat of the sun and of 
fire, to subdue their physical passions. Spiritual, in that their theo- 
retical aim, at least, was always to produce the desired religious 
fervor or ecstasy through which they hoped to gain enlightenment. 
In theory, all such practices were only a means, the end being enlight- 
enment. They prepared the soul for this end by subduing desires 
and inducing a spiritual attitude favorable to the reception of enlight- 
enment. But in this case, too, as in the case of the theory of divine 
grace and devotion to the Deity, the means became the end in some 
later sects, which came to think of salvation as resulting directly 
from asceticism, not ‘from enlightenment brought on by asceticism. 
There are sects which teach that salvation is sure to come to one 
who starves himself to death—the ne plus ultra of ascetic practice. 
This extreme, however, is exceptional.*” 


87 In the popular mind ascetic practices came to be regarded as a means of 
acquiring all sorts of supernatural or magic powers; just as knowledge (the 
acquisition of which was the theoretical object of ascetic practices) was con- 


UPANISHADS ; FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF HINDU THOUGHT 29 


We see, then, that the word tapas, “fervor,” had both a physical 
and a spiritual aspect in both the early Vedic speculations and their 
later successors, but that there was a change in the connotation on 
each side. The Upanishads took up the early concept of “fervor” 
or “warmth” and reinterpreted it in terms of their own ideas. Com- 
mon to both periods is the use of the primarily physical concept to 
characterize a certain type of religious life, though a different type 
in each period. The early use of the concept in cosmogonic connec- 
tions may also be presumed to have contributed to the use of it in 
the Upanishads as a tentative definition of the First Principle, or a 
means of knowing it. (“Seek to know the brahman by fervor 
[austerity, tapas]; brahman is fervor [austerity]!”)** Not a few 
Upanishad passages speak of attaining the dtman through tapas, 
either alone or in conjunction with other potencies. For them, how- 
ever, it remains a subordinate concept, on the whole. The sentence 
just quoted is not at all typical of their general attitude. In this 
respect the Bhagvad Gita agrees with them. Indeed, the usual atti- 
tude of the Gita is definitely opposed to asceticism ; it seeks to justify 
participation in normal, worldly life, though with qualification. Only 
rarely does it speak in terms which seem to recommend withdrawal 
from the world.*® 

To summarize this chapter: the Upanishads show us the begin- 
nings of the fundamental principles of later, classical Hinduism. 
These may be grouped under three general headings. First, pes- 
simism: all ordinary life is evil. Second, transmigration, with the 
doctrine of karma: living souls are subject to an indefinite series of 
lives, all more or less like this life, the condition of the individual in 
each being determined by his moral conduct in previous existences. 
Third, salvation: the only hope for release from this endless chain 
of evil existences is (primarily) by “knowledge,” that is, intuitive 
realization of the supreme metaphysical truth; as preparations or 
aids to the attainment of this knowledge are recognized morality, 
devotion to a supreme personality, and ascetic austerities, although 
all of these are usually kept in a quite subordinate position in the 


Upanishads. In various later sects one or another of them at times 
assumes such importance as to obscure the original means of salva- 
tion, “knowledge.” Except in this last respect, virtually all Hindu 
sects and philosophies agree regarding these basic postulates, how- 
ever much they may ‘differ on other matters. 

ceived by the vulgar in terms of magic power. Some of the later systems of 
philosophy which attach great importance to austerities are not free from this 


degradation of the idea. 
88 Taittiriya Upanishad, 3.2ff. 89 See Chapter VII. 


CHAPTER IV 
PREHISTORY OF THE GOD OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA 


T COULD hardly be expected that the popular consciousness 
would be gripped by Upanishadic thought. It was too intellec- 
tual, too impersonal, to appeal to any but a small proportion of the 
population. The great mass of mankind demanded, as always, a 
personal, quasi-human god or gods to worship; it could not be satis- 
fied by a refined, mystic contemplation of a nameless Soul, even if 
it be the Soul of the universe. Some more acceptable outlet for the 
religious feeling of the people had to be provided; and there is good 
reason to believe that it was provided. Unfortunately, the evidence 
about it is mostly indirect and secondary. We can judge of it, for 
the most part, only from its traces in such later works as the Bhaga- 
vad Gita, which clearly presuppose a considerable development of 
popular religion, distinct from the higher thought of the Upanishads 
but contemporary therewith. In the Gita these two streams are 
blended. We have no records that show us the popular beliefs of 
that period in a pure form. 

For this reason, it is scarcely possible to attempt any extensive 
reconstruction of those popular beliefs. The principal thing to be 
said about them is that they were certainly theistic, and presumably 
tended towards a monotheism, of a more or less qualified sort. That 
is, presumably various local or tribal deities were worshipped in dif- 
ferent parts of India, each occupying a position somewhat similar to 
that of Yahweh among the Jews—each being regarded as the chief 
or perhaps the sole god of his people or tribe, though the existence 
of the gods of other tribes was not exactly denied. These local 
deities were, we may assume, of very different types and origins. 
Sometimes they may have been old gods of aboriginal, non-Aryan 
tribes. Sometimes they seem to have been local heroes, deified after 
death. 


PREHISTORY OF THE GOD OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA 31 


Such a local deity must have been the Krishna who appears as 
the Supreme Deity, the “Blessed One,” in the Bhagavad Gita. He 
was apparently a deified local chieftain, the head of the Vrishni clan. 
Indeed, he appears as such, in strictly human guise, in the greater 
part of the Mahabharata. In the Gita he is still both god and man; \ 
an incarnation of the Deity in human form. We know nothing of 
the process by which he attained divine honors, nor of his earlier 
history as a god, before the Bhagavad Gita, which is probably the | 
earliest work preserved to us in which he appears as such. In this 
work he has all the attributes of a full-fledged monotheistic deity, 
and at the same time, as we shall see, the attributes of the Upani- 
shadic Absolute. In other words, the popular God is philosophized 
into a figure who can appeal to both the higher and the lower circles 
of the population. Therein lies the strength of Krishnaism in later 
India; it is many-sided enough to satisfy the religious requirements 
of almost any man, whatever his intellectual or social status may be. 


The Upanishads themselves are not entirely free from quasi- 
monotheistic touches, some of which may perhaps be interpreted as 
concessions to this same popular demand for a personal god. Espe- 
cially interesting, and important for later Hinduism, is the personal- 
ization of the philosophic term Brahman, as a name for the Absolute, 
which appears even in some of the earliest Upanishads. The word 
brahman is primarily and originally neuter in gender, and remains so 
usually throughout the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita; but 
occasionally it acquires a personality, as a sort of creating and ruling 
deity, and then it has masculine gender. It thus becomes the god 
Brahma, familiar to later Hinduism as the nominal head of the Triad 
consisting of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva 
the Destroyer. This trinity appears only in comparatively late Upani- 
shads, and no clear mention of it is found in the Bhagavad Gita, 
although the Gita at least once refers to the masculine and personal 
Brahma, “the Lord sitting on the lotus-seat.” *° But this grammatical 
trick was not sufficient to satisfy the craving of the human soul. 
Even masculinized, Brahman-Brahma remained too bloodless to 
attract many worshipers. Later Hinduism pays lip-homage to him, 
but reserves its real worship for his colleagues, Vishnu and Shiva. 

Vishnu and Shiva, under various names and forms, are the real 
gods of later India. Shiva-worship, though certainly much older 
than the Bhagavad Gita, does not appear therein, and may therefore 
be left out of consideration in this book. But we must say a few 


#059715, 


32 CHAPTER IV 


words about Vishnu, since he was identified with Krishna, the Gita’s 
God, or regarded as incarnate in Him. This identification seems to 
me to appear clearly in the Gita itself. 

Vishnu was one of the gods of the Rig Veda, and, like most of 
them, a nature-god. He was a personification of the sun. But the 
Rig Veda contains a number of sun-gods (perhaps originally belong- 
ing to different tribes, or else representing different aspects of the 
sun’s power). Vishnu is one of the less prominent and less impor- 
tant ones. He is distinctly a minor figure in the Rig Veda. We 
hear that he measures the universe in three great strides, which refer 
figuratively to the sun’s progress across the sky. The third stride 
lands him in “the highest foot-step (or, place; the word has both 
meanings) of Vishnu,” which means the zenith. This is thought of 
as the highest point in the universe, and at times it is conceived as 
a kind of solar paradise, to which the spirits of the blessed dead 
may go. So in post-Rig-Vedic literature, we hear expressions of 
the desire for attaining “Vishnu’s highest place.” So, also, in this 
period, Vishnu is occasionally declared to be “the highest of the 
gods’’; this is doubtless to be understood in a literal, physical sense, 
because Vishnu’s abode is the “top of the world.” In the same 
period, we find very frequently the statement that “Vishnu is the 
sacrifice.’ Why he should have been singled out for this honor, 
we cannot tell; there are other gods whose far greater prominence 
would seem to us to give them a better claim to be regarded as a 
personification of the ritual. But the frequency of the statement 
leaves no room for doubt that the priests of the “Middle Vedic” 
(Brahmana) period generally thought of Vishnu in this way. And 
since, as we have seen, to them the “sacrifice” was the central power 
of the universe, we see that from their point of view no higher com- 
pliment was possible. Evidently Vishnu was acquiring a much more 
dignified position than he had in the Rig Veda. 

The Upanishads add nothing to the history of Vishnu. They— 
that is, the older ones, those which antedate the Gita—mention his 
name only three or four times, and quite in the style of the Middle- 
Vedic period. But suddenly, in the Gita and other contemporary 
writings, we find Vishnu recognized as a supreme monotheistic deity, 
worshipped either under his own name, or in the form of various 
incarnations, the chief of which is Krishna. This was at a time 
when the Vedic religion, as a whole, was nearly dead. Its gods no 


_“A_ distinguished Hindu scholar, Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, thinks that 
Krishna is not yet identified with Vishnu in the Gita, though he was soon after- 
wards. See his Vaisnavism, S’aivism and Minor Religious Systems, page 13. 


PREHISTORY OF THE GOD OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA 33 


longer had a real hold on any class of the people. Their existence 
was not denied, but they were reduced to the rank of petty spirits. 
Even the once all-important sacrifices were largely falling into dis- 
use. But if the ritual religion was perishing, the priestly class was 
not. By this time it was recognized as a definite and hereditary 
caste, the brahmanhood, which claimed the headship of human 
society. With this fact, probably, is to be connected the identifica- 
tion of the god or hero Krishna, and other popular gods and heroes, 
with the old Vedic god Vishnu. Thus a sacerdotal tinge was given 
to the thriving monotheism which had such a hold on the mass of 
the people. Brahmanism stooped to conquer; it absorbed popular 
cults which it had not the strength to uproot. The simple and ancient 
device of identification of one god with another furnished the means 
to this end. 

It remains something of a mystery to scholars why Vishnu, 
rather than some other Vedic deity, was selected for this purpose. 
Even after the development described in the last paragraph but one, 
Vishnu is by no means the most prominent god of the pantheon. 
Many steps in the long process have evidently disappeared from 
our sight. But probably his frequent identification with the sacri- 
fice, and his growing eschatological importance as the ruler of a kind 
of paradise for the dead in his “highest place,” have something to 
do with it. 

We have, then, finally, a union of at least three strands in the, 
monotheistic deity of the Bhagavad Gita: a popular god-hero of a - 
local tribe, an ancient Vedic deity belonging to the hieratic ritual 
religion, and the philosophic Absolute of the Upanishads. The blend 
is, as we shall see, by no means perfect. Especially the monistic, 
Upanishadic element is sometimes rather clearly distinguished from 
the theistic element or elements; the author of the Gita himself 
seems to have been conscious of this distinction at times.4? But for 
the most part it is hard to disentangle one from the other. 


42 See Chapter VI. 





ees. bY eh 
Sen Wiis sy wk 
aT Be ana 
DNF | i) ey } <3 ey 
Au eS a ae HE : 


‘oi 7 
bee 
A iw 


A 


Fi! yen 


rag)" 
ath 
4 ¥ 


nan 





pe GND TN Ls 


THE TEACHINGS OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA 


vA ony 

Leva de 
7 } "9 ae oD 
nies ats 


fe 
i 
os 


iby f 
4 N my 
i Py Per Ake 
ye Berk Rai eee if es ih , 
e| 3. iy Li p a 


7 , ree fi 
TA ats ah ; 
tia} Ee ate 5 


Tha We 4 7 
il cA 





CHAPTER V 
SouL AND Bopy 


E SAW that the Upanishads center their attention on a search 

for the central, fundamental, and animating principle of the 
universe, and of man; that these two objects of research are con- 
ceived in them as parallel, the universal macrocosm being compared 
to the human microcosm; and that this parallelism tends to turn into 
an identity, which results in an equation between the “soul” or real 
self of man and that of the universe. So frequent and striking are the 
expressions of this idea in the Upanishads that it is often, though I 
think not without exaggeration, regarded as the prime motif of 
Upanishadic thought. 

In spite of the fact that the Bhagavad Gita is saturated with the 
atmosphere of the Upanishads, this great idea of theirs is not exactly 
prominent in it. It is not unknown to it; several passages in which 
it speaks of the human soul come very close to that idea.** It would 
indeed be strange if it had avoided the idea altogether. It is curious 
enough that it has so nearly suppressed it, in view of its obvious debt 
to Upanishadic thought. The chief reason for the suppression evi- 
dently lies in the fact that this monistic idea is felt to be irreconcil- 
able with the ardent, devotional theism of the Gita. Even though, 
as we shall see, the Gita conceives God as immanent in all beings, 
and its author hopes for ultimate union with Him, still he seems to 
shrink from the bold assertion “I am God,” which requires more 
courage than the Upanishadic “I am Brahman,” simply because 
Brahman is impersonal and the Gita’s God is definitely personal. 
Union with God is projected into the future, and is not conceived on 


432.17: “But know thou that That One (the human soul is referred to) by 
which all this universe is pervaded is imperishable. Of this immortal one no 
one can cause the destruction.”—2.24: “Eternal, omnipresent, unmoved, unshak- 
able, everlasting is He (the human soul).”—13.27: “Residing alike in all 
beings, the supreme Lord (the human soul), not perishing when they (the 
beings) perish,—who perceives this has true vision.” 


38 CHAPTER V 


a basis of equality between the soul and God.** Once the Gita speaks 
of the human soul as a part of God.*® Generally God is conceived 
as a personality wholly distinct from the human soul, and infinitely 
superior to it. | 

The Upanishadic notion of the human soul is, however, clearly 
retained in the Gita as far as concerns its individual nature. It is 
still the essential part of man, that which does not perish at death. 
Indeed, the dignity and importance of the soul is brought out if pos- 
sible even more strongly than is usual in the Upanishads, in one 
respect ; namely, in the contrast that is emphasized between the soul 
and what is not soul. This contrast is rather a minor matter in most 
of the Upanishads. They are so charmed by the contemplation of 
the soul, which they find in everything, that they virtually ignore the 
existence of everything that is not soul,** or else brush it aside with 
the summary remark that “whatever is other than that (the soul) 1s 
evil.” 47 At any rate, most of them are not enough interested in the 
non-soul to speculate much about its nature. The Gita, on the other 
hand, has definite theories about the structure of the non-soul or 
body,—largely inherited, to be sure, from older times, and to some 
extent hinted at in certain of the Upanishads. These are used to 
contrast the body with the soul; and the comparison, of course, is 
much to the advantage of the soul. Thus in the opening part of the 
dialog, Krishna instructs Arjuna that he should not grieve for the 
soul, because it is immortal, and inaccessible to the sufferings which 
afflict the body. “It is declared that these bodies come to an end; 
but the Embodied (Soul) in them is eternal, indestructible, unfath- 
omable.” #8 “He (the soul) is not born, nor does he ever die; nor, 
once being, shall he evermore cease to be. Unborn, eternal, ever- 
lasting from oldest times, he is not slain when the body is slain.” *° 


44 Some of the Christian mystics seem more courageous. Compare Jacob 
Boehme’s 
“Ich bin so gross wie Gott, 
Er ist wie ich so klein.” 


4515.7: “A part just of Me, which is the eternal soul in living beings,” 
etc; 

46 Some scholars say that they even deny the real existence of anything 
other than the soul, as the later Vedanta philosophy does. I do not agree with 
this view. 

47 Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad, 3.4.2. 

482.18. 

492.20. Compare also 2.11, 25, 30. It is painful to have to add that this 
doctrine is here applied to a justification of war, and of killing in general; since 
the soul cannot be killed, and the body does not matter (and since, moreover, 
it must die in any case, 2.26, 27), “therefore fight,” says Krishna (2.18). A 
charitable explanation would be that this is a concession to the dramatic situa- 


SOUL AND BODY 39 


We find, in fact, that the Gita’s most usual and characteristic 
position is definitely dualistic. There are two eternal principles, 
eternally distinct from each other: “soul” (usually called purusha, 
‘man, person, spirit” ; sometimes dtman, “self”; other synonyms also 
occur), and what may perhaps be called “non-soul” rather than 
“body,” since, as we shall see presently, it includes mental faculties ; 
the usual Hindu term is prakriti, “nature, material nature, matter.” 
The soul is absolutely unitary, undifferentiated, and without quali- 
ties ; not subject to any change or alteration, and not participating in 
any action. Material nature, or the non-soul, is what performs all 
acts. It assumes manifold forms, and is constantly subject to change 
—evolution, devolution, and variation. 

The variety of material nature is expressed in two ways. First, 
it is composed of three elements called gunas, that is, “threads, 
strands,” or “qualities” :5° namely, sativa, “purity, goodness” ; rajas, 
“activity, passion”; and tamas, “darkness, dullness, inactivity.” 
Mingled in varying proportions, these three qualities make up all 
matter. Preponderance of one or another of these qualities deter- 
mines the character of any given part of material nature.®4 But 
material nature also includes what we consider the mental faculties 
of living beings, particularly of man. This is made clear in one 
passage in the Gita,®? where we find a second and much more elabo- 
rate statement of the constituents of material nature—or rather, this 
time, of its evolvents; for, though this is not clearly stated here, it 
is obvious that we are dealing with an evolutionary theory which 
is very familiar in later Hindu philosophy. According to this, out 
of the primal, undifferentiated “matter” develops first the “will” or 
faculty of consciousness (the term, buddhi, approximately covers 
both of these English terms) ; then the “I-faculty,” the organ of self- 


tion of the poem, as inserted in the Mahabharata; and this could be supported 
by various texts in the Gita which are distinctly hostile to violence. But we 
shall see that there are other ethical, as well as metaphysical, inconsistencies in 
the Gita. See Chapter XI. ; 

50 The word seems to me both concrete and abstract in the Gita; the gunas 
are both material “constituent elements,” like strands of a rope, and qualifying 
characteristics. No clear distinction was made at this time between these two 
concepts (cf. Oldenberg, Upanishaden und Buddhismus, p. 217f.). The later 
Sankhya philosophy insists that the gunas are physical, constituent parts of 
matter, not what we call qualities. 

51 The results of the preponderance of each of the three qualities in vari- 
ous parts of prakriti are set forth in some detail in the Gita, 14.6-18, and the 
whole of chapter 17. Generally speaking, the theory is that the best and highest 
forms of matter or nature are those in which sattva, “purity,” predominates; 
in the worst and lowest forms tamas, “dullness,” predominates; the predomi- 
nance of rajas, “activity” or “passion,” is found in a large variety of forms 


whose ethical values are mostly intermediate or indeterminate. 
52 13.5, 6 


40 CHAPTER V 


consciousness (ahamkdara) ; then the thinking organ (manas, some- 
times etymologically translated ‘“‘mind”), which mediates between 
sense-perception and the self-consciousness, and is regarded as the 
function of a special, “inner” sense-organ; with it the faculties of 
the ten sense-organs,* five intellectual (of sight, smell, hearing, taste 
and feeling) and five organs of action (of speech [function of the 
larynx], grasping [of the hands], locomotion [of the feet], evacua- 
tion, and generation) ; also the five “subtle elements,” the abstract 
essences of the material objects (or as we say, reversing the direc- 
tion, stimulants) of the five senses (sound, as the object of hearing, 
etc.) ; and finally the five gross elements, earth, air, fire, water, and 
ether.5* All of these forms of material nature—twenty-four in all, 
including the “undifferentiated” form—are alike composed of the 
three above-mentioned “qualities” (gunas), in varying proportions. 
It will be seen that the two classifications are not inconsistent, but 
cross one another, the one being, so to speak, vertical, the other 
horizontal. 

It is, as I have said, only “material nature” or “matter” that acts. 
“Actions are performed entirely by the qualities (gunas) of mate- 
rial nature. He whose soul is deluded by the I-faculty imagines that 
he is the doer.” °> That is, owing to the confusion created by the 
activity of the organ of self-consciousness—which is part of matter, 
not of the soul—one imagines that “he” himself (his soul, his real 
self, or dtman) performs actions. “But he who knows the truth 
of the distinction between (the soul, on the one hand, and) the quali- 
ties (of matter) and action (on the other), knowing that (in any 
action) it is (not the soul that acts but) the qualities of matter that 
act upon the qualities, is not enthralled.” °* “And who perceives that 
acts are exclusively performed by material nature alone, and so that 
his soul does nothing, he has true vision.” &’ ‘The disciplined man 
who knows the truth shall think: ‘I am not doing anything at all,’ 
whether he be seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, walking, 
sleeping, breathing, speaking, evacuating, seizing, opening or closing 
his eyes; he holds fast to the thought that it is the (material) senses 


53 The Gita seems to include both the physical organs and their functions 
in the same verbal expressions, I shall not here discuss the later Hindu usage. 

54] shall refrain from describing the precise stages of this evolutionary 
process as set forth in the later Sankhya philosophy. It is not clear to what 
extent they had been formulated in the time of the Gita. One verse of the 
Gita (3.42) lists a few of these “evolvents” in climactic order, but without 
asserting any genetic relationship, —in fact, perhaps implying rather that none 
exists, since the “highest” member of the series is there the Soul, which is 


elsewhere clearly stated to be unrelated to matter. 
55 3.27. 563 28. 6713.29. 


SOUL AND BODY 41 


that are operating on the objects of sense.” °* “When the Beholder 
(the soul) perceives that no other than the qualities (of matter) acts 
and knows that which is above the qualities, he attains unto My 
estate.’ °° 

What, then, is the function of the soul? As the passage last 
quoted indicates, it “beholds” the activities of matter, passively, and 
without participation. “Passively” in the sense that it has no rela- 
tion to those activities at all; not in the sense that it is affected by 
them, for its true, fundamental nature is just as free from the effects 
of action as from its performance. “The Lord (the soul) does not 
receive (i. e., reap the fruit of) any one’s sin, nor yet (of) his virtu- 
ous action.” © “Swords cut him not, fire burns him not, waters wet 
him not, wind dries him not. He cannot be cut, he cannot be burnt, 
he cannot be wet, nor yet dried. Eternal, omnipresent, unmoved, 
unshakable, everlasting is he (the human soul).” ®t Elsewhere the 
soul is called the “knower” of matter: “This body is called the Field. 
He who knows it (i. e., the soul), him those who know the truth call 
the Field-knower.” ®* The soul, then, merely looks on and “knows” 
matter and its acts, but has no real connection with them. 

And yet, inconsistently as it seems at first sight, the soul is spoken 
of as experiencing pleasure and pain, which result from material 
contacts and processes. “Know that both material nature and the 
soul are eternal ; know that both the evolvents (will, I-faculty, organ 
of thought and other sense-organs, and subtle and gross elements) 
and the qualities (gunas) spring from material nature. Material 
nature is declared to be the cause of things to be done, of action, and 
of agency; the soul is declared to be the cause of enjoyment (i. e., 
experiencing) of pleasure and pain. For the soul, residing in mate- 
rial nature, enjoys the qualities (gunas) that are born of material 
nature. The reason is its attachment to the qualities, in its various 
births in good and evil stations.” ** The key to the seeming incon- 
sistency (which is really due to a certain laxity or inaccuracy in the 
passage just quoted) is indicated in the last sentence, the thought 
of which is more fully expressed in another passage, where it is 
said that the soul “draws to itself the (five) senses, with the organ 
of thought as the sixth, which spring from material nature. . 
Resorting to hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell, and the organ of 
thought (all of which are really material), it pursues the objects of 


sense. Fools do not perceive that it (the soul) is attended by the 
585.8, 9. 61 2.23, 24. 
59 14.19, Fogel Ee Se 
€0:5,15- 63 13.19-22. 


42 CHAPTER V 


qualities (gunas, of matter) when it is passing out or remaining 
fixed (in the body) or enjoying (the objects of sense). Those whose 
eye is knowledge see this.” ** It is only because the soul is associated 
with matter that it “enjoys,” or rather (it would be more accurate to 
say) seems to “enjoy,” material processes. “Those who are deluded 
by the qualities (gunas) of material nature are enthralled in the 
actions ef the qualities,” °° In other words, it is, strictly speaking, 
not the soul that “enjoys’—experiences—anything. That it seems 
to do so is due to the confusion caused by the organ of self-con- 
sciousness, the “I-faculty,” which is a product of material nature 
and really quite disconnected with the soul, and from which in turn 
spring all the sense-organs and their objects. Were it not for this, 
the soul would perceive that it has no relation whatever to the activi- 
ties and sufferings of matter. Since to the Gita the general Hindu 
pessimistic view of life is axiomatic, it follows that this “enjoyment” 
is in reality naught but evil and suffering, and that the association of 
the soul with matter is a bondage. “Purity (sattva), activity (pas- 
sion, rajas) and dullness (tamas),— these qualities, springing from 
material nature, bind in the body the immortal soul.” ®* It is only 
the unenlightened man whom they can bind. When one attains true 
enlightenment, that is, realization of the true nature of the soul and 
matter and their fundamental independence of each other, then, by 
virtue of this perfect, mystic knowledge, he obtains release; his soul 
transcends matter and is freed from it for good and all, and he is 
freed from the chain of rebirths. “Who thus understands the soul 
and material nature together with the qualities (of the latter),—in 
whatever state he may be, he is not (to be) born again.” ®’ “The 
Embodied (Soul), transcending these three qualities (of matter) that 
spring from the body, freed from birth, death, old age, and sorrow, 
attains immortality (here a poetic expression for nirvana).” ° “Men- 
tally abandoning all actions (that is, taking no interest in any action 
which the body may perform), the Embodied (Soul) sits at peace, 
self-controlled, in his nine-doored citadel (the body), and neither 
acts nor causes action at all.” ° 

Note that this is a distinctly anthropomorphic dualism. As we 
have already seen, it is characteristic of Hindu speculation that it 
thinks of the whole universe in human terms; this was particularly 
true of the Upanishads, and remains true, generally speaking, of all 


64 15.7-10. 66 14.5. 68 14.20. 

65 3.29. eT 13120. 

69 5.13. We shall have more to say of the various means of salvation found 
in the Gita in Chapters VIII and IX. 


SOUL AND BODY 43 


later systems. This attitude assumes various forms. The Gita says: 
“All creatures whatsoever, motionless (inanimate objects and plants) 
or moving (animals), are produced by the union of the Field (mate- 
rial nature) and the Field-knower (the soul). 7° This seems to 
attribute to all nature not only mental faculties, —will, self-conscious- 
ness, and thinking organ,—which are parts of material nature and 
its primary evolvents, but also a soul that is distinct from material 
nature. Some Hindu sects—particularly the Jains—clearly and defi- 
nitely accept the extreme implications of this theory, and believe that 
even inanimate objects are inhabited by souls, which are subject to 
transmigration like animal souls. Most Hindu systems do not carry 
it as far as that, at least in definite statements. But to all of them 
man is the only part of the universe that really counts. Animals 
(usually plants also) are to them potential humans; and the rest of 
the world they virtually ignore in their speculations. We need not 
consider here the extreme idealistic monism of Shankara’s Vedanta 
philosophy, according to which there is only One that truly exists, 
namely Brahman, the world soul, with which the human soul is really 
identical ; all else is illusion (md@yd@), existing only in appearance, as 
a mirage, and not in reality. This system developed long after the 
Gita, as it seems to me, although it claims to be founded on the Upan- 
ishads. In a sense it is founded on them; it is only the logical con- 
clusion, or extreme application, of their doctrine that the essential 
part of man is one with the essential part of the universe. But the 
Upanishads did not say ‘the non-soul does not exist.” They only 
tended to ignore its existence or its importance—to wave it aside as 
unworthy of their consideration ; they were not interested in it. This 
explains why the Upanishads could be made the basis for such 
diametrically opposite systems as the monism of Shankara’s Vedanta 
on the one hand and the Gita’s dualism on the other. The latter was 
reduced to more systematic forms by the later Sankhya and Yoga 
philosophies, both of which recognize the reality and independence 
of soul and matter. They differ on the existence of God, which is 
accepted by the Yoga but denied by the Sankhya. The Gita agrees 
with the Yoga in this respect. All of these views derive from the 
Upanishadic speculations centering about the human soul; and all 
agree that the non-soul, or material nature, is something from which 
the soul should utterly detach itself, whether it really exists (Gita, 
Sankhya, and Yoga) or is merely illusory (Vedanta). 


7713.20: 


CHAPTER VI 
Tue NATURE OF GoD 


E HAVE spoken of the metaphysics of the Gita as dualistic, 
as recognizing two fundamental principles, the soul and the 
non-soul (body, or material nature). But it is impossible to read 
far in the Gita without finding that this description does not fully 
represent its author’s metaphysics, at least in his most typical mood. 
It leaves out of account his idea of God, which is as it were super- 
imposed upon the dualistic system outlined in the last chapter. 
How does God fit into this system? Is He a sort of third prin- 
ciple, higher than the other two and distinct from them? So we are 
told at times, perhaps most clearly in the following passage: “There 
are two souls™ here in the world, a perishable and an imperishable 
one. The perishable (i. e., material nature) is all beings. The imper- 
ishable (i. e., the soul, spirit) is called the Uniform (unchangeable). 
But there is another, a supreme Soul, called the Highest Spirit (Par- 
amatman), the Eternal Lord who enters into the three worlds and 
supports them.” 7? Here the Supreme Soul, God, is definitely set off 
against the individual soul and matter, as a third principle. Some- 
what similarly in another passage, we first have a statement of the 
ordinary dualism: “This body is called the Field; him who knows it 
(the soul) those who know the truth call the Field-knower”—which 
is immediately followed by this: “Know that I (God) am the Field- 
knower in all Fields.” *° 


™1 The word used is purusha, which elsewhere means strictly “soul” and is 
not applied to the body or material nature; yet here the “perishable soul” can 
obviously mean nothing but prakriti, material nature. This is an example of 
the loose language which not infrequently confuses the expression of the Gita’s 
thoughts, and reminds us that we are reading a mystic poem, not a logical treat- 
ise on metaphysics. 

7215.16, 17. 

127137172, 


THE NATURE OF GOD 45 


But even in these very passages let it be noted that God, though 
in a sense something other than either material nature or the indi- 
vidual souls of men, is at the same time regarded as immanent in 
them. ‘“‘Whoso sees Me in all and all in Me, for him I am not lost, 
and he is not lost for Me. Whoso, attaining to (the concept of) 
oneness, reveres Me as located in all beings, he, the disciplined, 
though he may abide everywhere (i. e., anywhere), abides in Me.” ™ 
“Attaining to (the concept of) oneness!’ Thus through its idea of 
God the Gita seems after all to arrive at an ultimate monism. The 
essential part, the fundamental element, in every thing, is after all 
One—is God. “There is nothing else that is outside of Me; on Me 
this All is strung like necklaces of pearls on a string.’’7> “Also the 
seed of all beings, that am I. There is no being, moving or motion- 
less, that is without Me.”7* “I am the moisture in the waters, the 
light in the moon and sun, the sacred syllable Om in all the Vedas, 
sound in the ether, manliness in men. The goodly odor in the earth 
am J, and the brilliance in the fire; I am the soul in all beings, and 
the austerity in ascetics. Know Me as the eternal seed of all crea- 
tures. I am the intelligence of the intelligent, the glory of the glori- 
ous.” 77 God is the animating principle in everything; it is He that 
“makes the wheels” of the universe “go ’round,” that acts in all 
natural activities and processes: “The Lord resides in the heart of 
all beings and makes all beings go around by His mysterious power 
(maya), as if they were fixed on a revolving machine.” 7® “The 
splendor of the sun that illumines the whole world and the splendor 
that is in the moon and in fire, know that to be My splendor. Enter- 
ing into the earth I support (all) beings by My power; becoming 
the juicy soma I make all plants to grow. Becoming fire (as the prin- 
ciple of digestion, regarded by the Hindus as a “cooking” by bodily 
heat) I enter into the bodies of animate creatures, and, joining with 
the upper and nether breaths, I digest their food of all four sorts. I 
have entered into the heart of every man; from Me come memory, 
knowledge, and negation (in reasoning). I alone am the object of 
the (sacred) knowledge of all the Vedas; I am the author of the 
Vedanta (summation of the esoteric doctrines of the Vedas), and I 
too am the sole knower of the Veda.” ’® So, of course, God is 
repeatedly declared to be the Creator, Supporter, Ruler of all that 
is; the origin and dissolution of the universe,®° “both death that 


74 6.30, 31. ha Fe f 
1874s 79 15.12-15. 
76 10.39. 80 7.6. 
777.8-10 


46 CHAPTER VI 


seizes all and the origin of creatures that are to be,” ** “both immor- 
tality and death, both the existent and the non-existent,” * “the 
beginning and the middle and the end of beings.” ** 


Such thoughts lead to the question of the existence of evil and 
how to reconcile it with the concept of an all-embracing God. Every 
theistic religion has its difficulties with the problem of evil. In 
describing the manifestations of God in the universe, the Gita, quite 
naturally, tends to emphasize the good side of things; but at times it 
does not shrink from including the evil also. Since all comes from 
God, it seems impossible to deny that origin to anything. “What- 
soever beings (or, states of being) there are, be they of the nature 
of purity, activity, or dullness (the three gunas or qualities of mat- 
ter, as set forth in the last chapter), know that all of them come . 
from Me alone.” ** In another passage, God is declared to be the 
source of all mental states and experiences, good and bad alike, 
though the good predominates in the list: “Intelligence, knowledge, 
freedom from delusion, patience, truth, self-control, peace, pleasure, 
pain, existence (or, presence; or, coming-into-being), lack (non- 
being, or deficiency), fear, and fearlessness too; harmlessness, equa- 
nimity, satisfaction, penance, alms, fame, and disrepute—the states 
of creatures, of all various sorts, come from Me alone.” * More 
definite recognition of the origin even of evil in God is found in this: 
“T am the gambling of gamblers, the majesty of the majestic; I am 
conquest, I am adventure (of conquerors and adventurers) ; I am 
the courage of the courageous. . . . Iam the violence of conquerors, 
I am the statecraft of ambitious princes; I too am the silence of the 
taciturn (or, of silent ascetics), I am the knowledge of the 
learned.” *¢ 


If even in these passages we seem to find a tendency to slur over 
the evil of the world and its necessary relation to a quasi-pantheistic 
God, in other places the Gita feels it necessary to qualify its semi- 
pantheism by definitely ruling out evil from God’s nature. Thus to 
a passage in the seventh chapter which is strongly suggestive of 
pantheism, and which I quoted on the preceding page—‘“I am the 
moisture in the waters, etc.; I am the intelligence of the intelligent, 
the glory of the glorious’—there is added this significant verse: “I 
am the strength of the strong, free from lust and passion; I am 
desire in (all) beings (but) mot (such desire as is) opposed to right- 

8110.34. 847.12. 


$29.19. 85 10.4, 5. 
8810.20, 10.32. 86 10.36, 38. 


THE NATURE OF GOD 47 


eousness.” ** Thus the Gita strengthens its appeal to the natural 
man, or to “common sense,” at the expense of logic and consistency, 

This stricture (if it be considered a stricture) seems to me not 
unfair, even though I doubt whether it can be said that the Gita 
ever commits itself to absolute pantheism. It undoubtedly comes 
very close to it, as in some of the passages I have quoted. That 
God is im all, or all in God, it frequently says; and hence we may 
fairly ask whether God is also in that which is evil (or it in Him). 
But this is not exactly saying that God is all, that God is identical 
with all and all with God, there being no remainder on either side. 
Such a definitely pantheistic statement is not, I think, to be found 
in the Gita. Certainly we find many expressions which seem to 
deny it. And that in two ways. In the first place, God’s nature may 
be limited by the exclusion of certain parts of the universe or forms 
of existence. And secondly, God is thought of as extending beyond 
the universe, as including more than “all beings.” 

As to the first point, the word “limited” as applied to God’s 
nature is my own, and would undoubtedly have been strenuously 
repudiated by the author of the Gita. He would have said—indeed 
he does say again and again, in many different ways—that God is 
limitless, that He includes all forms. Yet we have seen that at times 
he feels compelled to deny that God manifests Himself in certain 
forms of existence which are felt as morally evil; although at other 
times he swallows even this dose. Whatever terminology one uses, 
the fact remains that the Gita repeatedly manifests a tendency to 
find God only in the best or highest forms of existence. The worse 
and lower forms are at least implicitly left out. This tendency is so 
natural as to be almost inevitable in a writer who is, after all, per- 
vaded by a spirit of ardent, personal theism—however tinged with 
quasi-pantheism. Philosophically, the doctrine that God is in all 
leaves a loophole which can be stretched to admit a good deal. God 
is the soul, the essential part of everything; this may be interpreted 
as meaning the highest or noblest part of everything. Now lay the 
emphasis on the word part, and the trick is turned. Any entity may 
be regarded as a part of some larger whole, just as any entity 
(except perhaps, for the time being at least, the modern electron) 
may be treated as a compound whole and analyzed into parts. By 
choosing your “whole” and making it sufficiently inclusive, God can 
be found in some “part” of every “whole,” and yet excused from 
responsibility for anything that would seem unworthy of Him. I 


alr A BE 


48 CHAPTER VI ‘ 


do not accuse the author of the Gita of deliberately practising such 
sophistry. Of course, his mind did not work in that way consciously. 
But unconsciously I think something like this must have gone on in 
his thoughts. Otherwise it seems impossible to account for such 
passages as the long series of verses found in the tenth chapter,®* in 
which God is identified with (only!) the first, highest, or best, of 
every conceivable class of beings: “Of lights Iam the sun. . . of 
stars the moon, of Vedas the Sama Veda, of gods Indra (the king 
of the old Vedic gods), of sense-organs the mind . . . of mountains 
Mount Meru,” and so forth indefinitely. 

On the other hand, the Gita’s theism differs from pantheism also 
in that it regards God as more than the universe. ‘“Whatsoever crea- 
ture possesses majesty or glory or greatness, know thou that every 
such creature springs from a fraction of My glory. . . . With one 
part of Myself I remain the support of this entire universe.” ®® “TI 
am not in them (all beings) ; they are in Me.” ®° “By Me all this 
world is permeated, by Me whose form is unmanifest. All beings 
rest in Me; and I do not rest in them.” ®! In the next verse after 
this last, the author retracts even this statement; it is too much to 
say even that the world is in God: “And (yet) beings do not rest 
in Me; behold My divine mystery! My nature is the support of 
beings, and does not rest in beings; it is the cause of being of 
beings.” ®? This idea that the First Principle is more than all exist- 
ing things, that the universe is only a part thereof, is at least as old 
as the “Purusha” hymn of the Rig Veda,®* in which the entire uni- 
verse is derived from only one-quarter of the cosmic Purusha or 
“Person.” 

This is by no means the only point in which the Gita’s concep- 
tion of God shows relationships with older ideas of the First Prin- 
ciple. While, as we have seen, the older speculations, so far as we 
know them, tend to impersonal and non-theistic formulations of the 
One, still many of the expressions which they use in describing 
that One can quite well be applied to a personal God; and they and 
similar expressions are so applied in the Gita. Many of the Gita’s 
descriptions of God sound as if they were taken bodily from the 
Upanishads. Thus: “Thou art the Supreme Brahman, the Supreme 
Light, the Supreme Purifier; the eternal Purusha (“Person’’), the 
divine, the Primal God, the Unborn Lord.” %* “The eternal Seer, 
the Governor, finer than an atom . . . the Establisher of all, whose 


88 10.21-37. oO. 4. | $410.12. 
89 10.41, 42. 02.00: 
ies Fuk 8 98 R. V., 10.90. 


THE NATURE OF GOD 49 


form is unthinkable, the Sun-colored, who is beyond darkness.” °° 
“I am the father of this world, the mother, the creator, the ances- 
tor... . The goal, supporter, lord, overseer, dwelling-place, refuge, 
friend; the beginning, end, abiding-place, treasure-store, the eternal 
seed (of all).”° The term Brahman, favorite expression in the 
Upanishads for the Absolute, is frequently found in the Gita: and 
often it is hard to say whether the author means to identify Brah- 
man with God or not. The fact doubtless is that, as set forth in 
Chapter IV, the Upanishadic Brahman has contributed largely to 
the Gita’s concept of God, which has absorbed it along with other, 
more theistic elements. As a rule, no clear distinction is made 
between them. But in one or two places the Gita shows a realiza- 
tion of a possible difference of Opinion as to whether the Supreme 
is personal or impersonal. And, most interestingly, it definitely 
recognizes both beliefs as leading to salvation,—that is, as in some 
sense or other true, or at any rate not wholly false; although it pre- 
fers the personal theory. “Arjuna said: ‘Those devotees who thus 
with constant devotion revere Thee, and those who revere the 
Imperishable, the Unmanifest (i. e., the impersonal Brahman), 
which of these are the best knowers of discipline?’ The Blessed 
One replied: ‘Those who fix their minds upon Me and revere Me 
with constant devotion, pervaded with supreme faith, them I con- 
sider the best-disciplined. But those who revere the Imperishable, 
Indescribable, Unmanifest, Omnipresent, and Unthinkable, the 
Immovable, Unchangeable, Immutable,—restraining completely all 
their senses, and keeping their minds indifferent in all circumstances, 
devoted to the welfare of all creatures,—they too reach Me after all. 
Greater is the toil for those who fix their minds on the Unmanifest. 
For the unmanifest path is hard for embodied creatures to attain’.”’ %7 
Could we ask for any clearer proof of the thesis set forth in Chap- 
ter IV? The abstract, impersonal Absolute of the Upanishads was 
more than the mind of the average man could grasp. The Gita rep- 
resents a sort of compromise between that speculative religion and 
popular theology. It provides an “easier way” to salvation, without 
denying the possibility of salvation to those hardier intellects which 
chose the more laborious, abstract path. We shall see later that in 
other ways, too, the Gita tries to save men the trouble of mental 
exertion. It is quite characteristic of it to regard intellectual meth- 


oF 8.9. 
PE EM EY 
4G Vath (I 


50 CHAPTER VI 


ods as difficult and unnecessary. It is “easier” for the ordinary man 
’ to worship a personal, anthropomorphic Deity than to fix his atten- 
tion on an impersonal Absolute. So the Gita, while allowing man 
to choose, recommends the belief in a personal God. 

Elsewhere the impersonal Brahman is more or less distinctly sub- 
ordinated to the personal God. Thus the following description is 
quite Upanishadic, except for the single phrase in which the Brah- 
man is described as “consisting of Me’: “The object of knowledge 
I will now set forth, knowing which one gains immortality; the 
beginningless Brahman, that consists of Me,;°8 it is declared to be 
neither existent nor non-existent. It has hands and feet on all sides, 
eyes, heads, and faces on all sides, ears on all sides, in the world; 
it permanently covers everything. It has the semblance of all the 
qualities and senses (of material nature), but is free from all the 
senses ; it is unattached, and yet it bears all; it has no qualities, yet 
it is the enjoyer of the qualities (of material nature). Both with- 
out and within all beings; immovable and yet moving; because of 
its subtility it cannot be known; it is both afar off and near. Both 
undivided and as it were divided, it resides in (all) beings, and it is 
to be known as the supporter of beings, causing their destruction 
and also their creation. It, too, is called the light of lights, that is 
beyond darkness; knowledge, and the object of knowledge, that is 
to be reached by knowledge; it is fixed variously in the heart of 
everyone.” °® The impersonal Brahman is nominally granted all the 
dignity which the Upanishads claim for it—and yet it depends on 
the personal God. “For I am the foundation of Brahman!” 2° 
Other passages in which the Brahman is spoken of as the Supreme 
Soul, the One that is in all creatures, or the “Possessor-of-the-Field,” 
leave us more or less uncertain as to just how the author would have 
formulated his thought if hard pressed. “When one perceives that 
the various estates of creatures are all fixed in One, and that it is 
just from that One that they spread out, then he attains Brahman. 
Because it is without beginning and without qualities, this eternal 
supreme Soul (dtman), even though it resides in the body, does not 
act, nor is it stained (affected, by actions). As the omnipresent 
ether, because of its subtility, is not stained, so the Soul, residing in 
every body, is not stained. As the one sun illumines this whole 


98 Literally, “having Me as the chief (element?)”; it is hard to determine 
the precise nuance of the phrase, but it seems to me to imply some subordination 
of the Brahman to “Me” (God). Others, by a different division of words, 
exclude the reference to “Me” from this passage. But 14.27, quoted below, is 
unambiguous and proves my point. 

99 13.12-17. . 100 14.27. 


THE NATURE OF GOD 51 


world, so the Possessor-of-the-Field illumines the whole Field 
(material body).” 1°. Is this impersonal, Upanishadic monism? Or 
is the One implicitly thought of under a personal, theistic guise? Or, 
as in the foregoing, is God the “foundation” of It? Ina preceding 
verse’? we were told that “I (God) am the Field-knower in all 
Fields” ; this suggests that the “Possessor-of-the-Field” is conceived 
as the personal God. Again: “But higher than this (world of per- 
ishable beings) is another, eternal being . . . which perishes not 
when all beings perish. It is called the unmanifest, the eternal; they 
call it the final goal, which having attained they do not return; # ts 
My supreme station (or, light). This supreme soul (purusha) is 
to be attained by single devotion; within it all beings rest; by it this 
universe is pervaded.” 2°? Again, we might think that we were read- 
ing a non-theistic Upanishad, but for the little phrase, “it is My 
supreme station (or, light).” Does this mean something else than 
that “Brahman is God’? Let the mystic answer. The fact seems 
to be that the author subconsciously avoids careful definition of these 
terms. Or, to put it otherwise, he does not feel able to get rid of 
the Upanishadic Absolute, but he strives, doubtless unconsciously, 
to color it with his personal theism. 


Elsewhere the idea of man as a dualism, a combination of “soul” 
and “body” or “material nature,” leads to a macrocosmic dualism in 
which God, the Soul of the Universe, is set over against the cosmic 
or universal Prakriti, “Material Nature” as a whole, which is then 
thought of as God’s body, as it were—God’s material nature. So 
God too is dualistic; He has a double nature, a “lower” or material, 
and a “higher” or spiritual. “Earth, waters, fire, wind, ether, mind, 
will, and self-consciousness: thus is divided My material nature, 
eight-fold. This is (My) lower (nature). But know My other 
nature, higher than that. It is the Soul by which this world is sus- 
tained.” 2°* And just as the material nature of man confuses and 
deceives him, so that he thinks that what is really matter is himself 
(his soul), so he confuses God’s body—manifest material nature— 
with God’s unmanifest Self. “Deluded by these conditions of exist- 
ence, that consist of the Three Qualities (gunas, of material nature), 
this whole world fails to know Me, who am superior to them and 
eternal. For this is My divine illusion (maya, trick, piece of jug- 
glery), consisting of the (three) qualities, hard to overcome. Those 
who devote themselves solely to Me escape this illusion.” ?°5 “‘Fool- 


101 13, 30-33. 103 8 20-22, 105 7,13, 14, 
102 13.2. 104 7.4, 5. 


52 CHAPTER VI 


ish men think of Me, the Unmanifest, as having become manifest. 
They do not know My higher nature, everlasting and supreme.” ?°° 


The adherents of the Vedanta philosophy interpret such passages 
as meaning that material nature is “illusion” (maya) in the sense 
that it does not really exist. I believe they are wrong. The Gita 
only means that the Soul—universal Soul or God as well as indi- 
vidual soul—is utterly distinct from material nature or body; the 
“illusion” consists in the apparent blending of the two. The wise 
man should realize the distinction ;\but this does not imply the non- 
existence of either. In my opinion the word maya did not acquire 
its Vedantic sense of “world-mirage” until long after the Gita’s 
time. The reality of material nature is clearly indicated in many 
passages in the Gita. Thus it accepts the doctrine of evolution and 
devolution of all nature at the beginning and end of successive 
world-eons, a theory which is familiar in Hindu cosmogonic specu- 
lations, and makes God the “overseer” of the process, and His mate- 
rial nature the world-stuff out of which all material creatures evolve 
and into which they devolve. “All beings go to My material nature 
at the end of an eon, and again at the beginning of (the next) eon I 
send them forth again. Resorting to My material nature, I send 
forth again and again this whole number of beings, involuntarily 
(that is, by a natural law, not by special interference), by the power 
of (My) material nature. . . . With Meas overseer, material nature 
creates the world of moving and unmoving beings. This is the 
cause by which the world revolves.” 1°’ This same process of suc- 
cessive creations in successive eons is alluded to elsewhere’®® and is 
there treated as wholly material, not even as supervised by the 
Supreme Soul, which however is mentioned in the following verses? 
as “higher than all that”; He does not perish when all beings perish 
at the end of an eon. But there is no suggestion in any of these 
passages that material nature is in any sense unreal. 


In another very curious and interesting passage this creative 
activity is conceived as a sexual relation between God, as the 
Supreme Soul (the male principle), and the female principle of 
inert or receptive matter. Instead of an evolution of beings out of 
matter independently of the Supreme Soul, or with Him merely as 
“overseer” of the process, the Supreme Soul or God “plants the 
germ’ in the womb of nature, and from this union all beings evolve. 
But here—most curiously—the cosmic matter is not called by the 


106 7.24 108 8.18, 19, 
1079.7, 8, 10. 109 820-22. 


THE NATURE OF GOD 53 


usual name of Prakriti, material nature, as we should expect??® 
(although this term would be peculiarly appropriate to such a con- 
nection, since the word prakriti is grammatically of the feminine 
gender), but instead is called Brahman, which has neuter gender! 
“My womb is the great Brahman; in it I plant the germ. Thence 
comes the generation of all creatures. Whatsoever forms are gener- 
ated in all wombs, of them Brahman is the great womb (mother) ; 
I am the father that furnishes the seed.” 141 Brahman is used as an 
equivalent for Prakriti, material nature, in another passage also: 
“Whoso lays his actions upon Brahman and does his acts while 
avoiding attachment (or interest in the results; compare Chapter 
VII), to him evil does not cling, as water clings not to a lotus- 
leaf.” 42, The context shows unmistakably that Brahman here can 
only mean “material nature,” the “non-soul,” which is, as we have 
already seen, solely responsible for all actions. In these passages a 
strange fate has overtaken the Upanishadic Brahman. Originally 
the Soul of the universe, it has been so far degraded as to be defi- 
nitely deprived of all spirituality, and identified with the inert cos- 
mic Matter, which is precisely all that is not Soul. No more signifi- 
cant indication could be found of the Gita’s personal theism. For 
nothing could be clearer than the reason for this dethronement of 
the Brahman. It was impersonal; and so, logically, it must either 
make way for, or be absorbed by, the personal God of the Gita. Of 
these two alternatives, the Gita, with the catholicity of the true mys- 
tic, chooses both, and neither. As we have seen in this chapter, 
Brahman (1) is absorbed into God, who assumes all its characteris- 
tics; (2) is differentiated from God and placed in some sort of sub- 
ordinate position to Him, or made a lower manifestation of Him; 
and (3) still at times retains its ancient prestige as the Absolute, the 
One-in-All. All these positions appear side by side in the Gita. 
Often its references to the Brahman are so vague as to leave us in 
doubt as to just how the author was thinking of it for the moment." 


110 And, be it noted, as later speculations call it; for this same sexual figure 
is used in later philosophy. 

111 14,3, 4. 

1125.10. 

113 There is no clear indication that the Gita knew the concept of the 
Trimirti, the supreme triad consisting of Brahma (as a masculine deity, the 
Creator-God), Vishnu, and Shiva, which is familiar in later Hinduism. Only 
once does the word Brahman in the Gita have masculine gender unmistakably ; 
in some of its occurrences the forms are ambiguous and could be either mascu- 
line or neuter, but when unambiguous it is always neuter except in a single 
instance. In that one occurrence the god Brahma is mentioned merely as one 
of the numerous beings that appear mystically manifested in the vision of the 
Deity’s supreme form as revealed to Arjuna, in the eleventh chapter. 


54 CHAPTER VI 


The whole material universe is, then, in some sense God’s mani- 
fest form or material nature. But of far greater practical impor- 
tance, for the development of the religion taught by the Gita, is this 
further fact, that God, by the exercise of his maya or “mysterious 
power,” can and does take on empiric, personal existence as an indi- 
vidual being in the world of beings. “Though I am unborn and ever- 
lasting in nature, though I am the Lord of Beings, I enter into my 
own material nature and take on (empiric) being, by my own mys- 
terious power.” #44 This is of course a cardinal doctrine of the Gita. 
Krishna, the principal speaker in the dialog, is himself such an incar- 
nation of the Deity. He is not the only one; God appears upon 
earth again and again, to accomplish His purposes. And His pur- 
poses are expressed in the following famous verses: “For whenever 
religion languishes, and irreligion shows its head, then I create 
Myself. To save the righteous, to destroy the wicked, to establish 
religion, I come into being from age to age.” %® God condescends 
to become man Himself, for the benefit of mankind. This is the 
beginning of the famous system of avatars or incarnations of God, 
which became so characteristic of later Vishnuism and a prime 
source of its strength. No Christian community needs to be told 
how such a doctrine of a loving God who is born upon earth to save 
the world can conquer the hearts of men. 


Of course, God appears in such an incarnation not in His true, 
supernal form. That form is not only invisible to the eye of man, 
or even of the (popular) “gods,” but also unknowable to their minds. 
“T know all beings that have been, that are, and that shall be; but 
no one knows Me.’’*4® “The companies of the gods know not My 
origin, nor the great seers (rishis) ; for I am the origin of the gods 
and the great seers altogether.’’*47 None but God Himself knows 
Himself, says Arjuna: “All this I hold to be true, that Thou tellest 
me; for neither gods nor demons know Thy manifestation, O Blessed 
One. Thou Thyself alone knowest Thyself by Thyself, O Supreme 
Spirit, Animator of Creatures, Lord of Creatures, God of Gods, 
Lord of the World.” 7*® But as a special act of grace, granted to 
the few whom God elects, and who serve Him with pure devotion, 
He may reveal His Supreme form. This He does to Arjuna, in the 
famous eleventh chapter of the Gita, the climax of the poem—after 

114 4.6, 

115 4.7, 8, 

116 7 26. 


117 10.2. 
118 10.14, 15. 


THE NATURE OF GOD 55 


first giving him a supernatural power of sight, since his natural eye 
could not behold the marvel.1#® The mystic vision is revealed by a 
pure act of God’s grace. No amount of pious rites and perform- 
ances can win it; it is granted only to the chosen of God, and, we 
are told, to Arjuna first of all mankind. “I in My grace have shown 
thee, Arjuna, this supreme form of Mine, by My own mysterious 
power; this majestic, universal, infinite, primeval form, which 
has not been seen before by any other than thee. Not by Vedic 
sacrifices and study, nor by almsgiving or rites or severe penance, 
can I be seen in this form by any other than thee in the world of 
men.” ?2° As to what Arjuna saw—of course, words fail utterly to - 
describe it. It is the mystic’s direct vision of God. The greater 
part of the eleventh chapter of the Gita is devoted to the confessedly 
vain attempt to describe this indescribable. The ecstatic language 
of the description is hard to transfer to another tongue. Even in 
externals the passage differs from its surroundings; instead of the 
sober meter of most of the poem, it breaks forth into more elaborate 
lyric measures, which Sir Edwin Arnold imitates in his English ver- 
sion. The vision is described as “made up of all marvels.” 174 “If 
the light of a thousand suns should suddenly burst forth in the sky, 
such would be His glory.” 12? “Arjuna beheld the whole world there 
united, and yet infinitely divided, in the form of the God of 
Gods.” ?#8 Therein were contained all creatures, the gods (Brahma*** 
and the rest), all the seers, the supernatural race of serpents, and 
all other beings ;1?5 there was neither beginning nor middle nor end 
to His form ;1** the sun and moon are His eyes, His face is flaming 
fire, He illumines the whole world with His radiance.1?7 And so on. 
We recognize the type of ecstacy which so many mystics of all times 
and lands have told of, and which, they all agree, can only be realized 
at first hand, not described in terms comprehensible to another unless 
the other be a brother-mystic who has himself enjoyed the experi- 
ence. 


119 11.8. 

120 11,47, 48 

121 ]1.11, 

122 11,12. 

128 11,13. 

124 Here occurs the only unmistakable reference to the masculine God 
Brahma that is found in the Gita, 

125 41,15, 

326 41.16, 

127 11,19, 


CHAPTER VII 
ACTION AND REBIRTH 


HE metaphysical views set forth in the last two chapters are to 

be understood as based upon or joined with the structure of 
general Hinduism which was briefly explained in my third chapter. 
It never occurred to the author of the Gita to question the doctrines 
of pessimism, rebirth under the control of karma or “action,” and 
salvation through ultimate release from that round of rebirths. To 
him they are not so much points to be proved as underlying princi- 
ples, which are axiomatic in quality. In emphasizing the immortal- 
ity of the soul he compares the successive lives of an individual to 
successive states (childhood, maturity, old age) in one life, or to 
changes of garments: “As in this body childhood, young manhood, 
and old age come to the Embodied (Soul), so It proceeds to other 
bodies. The wise man is not confused in this.” 1° “As, laying aside 
worn-out garments, a man takes on other, new ones, so laying aside 
worn-out bodies the Embodied (Soul) enters into other, new 
ones.” 17° These existences are, of course, all bodily ones; and that 
means that they are subject to all the ills that afflict the body. For 
if, as we have seen, the Soul is in reality independent of the body, 
it is only the enlightened soul which succeeds in realizing this inde- 
pendence, in perceiving that what affects the body does not affect 
him. As long as, deluded by the material organ of self-conscious- 
ness, the “I-faculty,” he imagines that he acts and suffers, so long 
he is enthralled, enchained in the round of existences. It is often 
stated, and always implied, that this chain is an evil,—that all bodily 
existence entails misery. Rebirth is called “the home (or source) 
of misery.” 1*° What results in its prolongation is therefore evil; 


what leads to release from it is or should be the chief aim of man. 
128 2,13. 
129 2.22. 
130 8.15. 


ACTION AND REBIRTH 57 


He who has obtained this release goes to the perfect state, nirvana.'*? 


When it comes to the details of the theory of rebirth and release 
from it, the Hindu systems are less unanimous, in spite of certain 
family resemblances. Common to all of them is the doctrine of 
“karma” or “action, deed,” according to which, generally speaking, 
any action done must have its result, good or bad according to its 
moral quality, for the doer.**? It follows from this that in order to 
get rid of the chain of reincarnation, one must somehow or other 
be released or excused from the normally inevitable consequei . es 
of his actions—even good ones. Otherwise, amy actions performed 
must have their fruit in continued existence. 


The Gita itself tells us that, as a consequence of such reasoning, 
‘some wise men say that (all) action is to be abandoned as evil.” 18% 
Such people choose the path of world-renouncing asceticism which 
has always had such an appeal to the Hindu mind. In order to 
escape the effects of action, namely continued existence, they pro- 
pose simply not to act—or to come as near to that ideal as possible. 
The ascetic life is advocated not only because it approximates a 
state of inaction and so tends directly to obliterate “karma,” but also 
because withdrawal from the world is a kind of insurance against 
being entangled in worldly desires, which lead man astray from his 
true goal, emancipation. There are passages in the Gita itself which 
recommend ascetic methods, such as carefully regulating the breath, 
fixing the eyes on a spot between the eyebrows, avoiding the “exter- 
nal contacts” of the senses with the objects of sense, holding in check 
the senses, the organ of thought, and the will, and so devoting one- 
self solely to emancipation.*** Even more explicitly and in greater 
detail another passage describes the ascetic practices of the “dis- 
ciplined man.” “The disciplined man should ever discipline him- 
self, living alone in a secret place. . . . Arranging for himself in a 
clean place a firm seat that is neither too high nor too low, and 
that is covered with a cloth or a skin or kusha-grass, there he should 
concentrate his mind, restraining the activities of his thoughts and 
his senses, and taking his place upon the seat should practise dis- 
cipline unto self-purification. Holding his body, head, and neck 
even and motionless, he should steadfastly gaze at the tip of his nose 
and not look to one side or another. Abiding in the vow of chastity, 

131 Qn which see above, page 22f. 


132 We shall presently speak of the extent to which this principle is re- 


stricted in the teachings of the Gita. 
183 18.3 


134527. 28, 


58 | CHAPTER VII 


his soul at peace and free from fear, restraining his mind, his 
thoughts fixed on Me (God), the disciplined man should sit absorbed 
ive. ae 

These are not the only passages in which the Gita uses expres- 
sions which suggest a more or less ascetic point of view. Yet such 
passages are decidedly rare in comparison with those which take 
the diametrically opposite position that one need not, indeed should 
not, renounce the world to live the life of a hermit, nor seek to 
refrain from actions. In general, the Gita is opposed to asceticism 
or to renunciation of action as such. I suspect that this has been in 
large part responsible for its great influence. Although the ascetic 
life has always appealed to more people in India, perhaps, than in 
any other land, still it has never been adopted in practice by more 
than a small minority. This is inevitable, in the nature of things. 
Asceticism is too violently opposed to natural human tendencies. 
The Gita provides a religious justification for continuing an approx- 
imately normal human life. Therein lies its strength. It does not 
ask the impossible; and yet it furnishes religious inspiration. It 
holds out the hope of salvation on terms which are not out of the 
reach of the great mass of mankind. And it provides for its scheme 
of salvation a philosophic background, based on commonly accepted 
Hindu ideas. 


As far as concerns the doctrine of “karma” or action as a cause 
of continued existence, the Gita meets it in a very simple and con- 
vincing, and yet extremely clever, way. It reminds us that back of 
action lies desire or passion (either positive or negative, that is 
“love” or “hate’”). It is passion that leads to actions, as we are told 
already in the Upanishads (see page 21), and still more emphatically 
in Buddhism and other classical Hindu systems. It is this that makes 
men interested in the results of actions. Now, the Gita maintains 
that since desire or passion is more fundamental than action, it is 
desire, rather than action, which is man’s enemy, and against which 
the preacher of religion must contend.1** This not only seems very 
‘reasonable in itself, but it is quite in keeping with the general trend 
of higher Hindu thought. 

But the Gita is much more clear-cut and definite than most Hindu 
systems in deducing from this proposition the inference that there 
is no binding power in action in itself. If a man acts unselfishly, 
without interest in the result, the action has no effect on his fate; 


185 610-14. 
136 3,34, 37. 


ACTION AND REBIRTH 59 


it leaves him free. “The wise call him intelligent all whose under- 
takings are free from desire and purpose, whose actions are con- 
sumed in the fire of knowledge. Abandoning attachment to the 
fruits of action, ever content, independent, he performs (in effect) 
no act whatsoever even when he sets out to act. Indifferent, with 
controlled thoughts and soul, abandoning all possessions, and per- 
forming only acts of the body (not acting with the mind; that is, 
not feeling interest in his actions), he does not incur sin. Content 
with what comes to him by chance, superior to the “pairs” (of 
Opposites, as pain and pleasure, heat and cold, and the like), unsel- 
fish, indifferent to success or failure, even when he acts he is not 
bound. Without attachment, free, his mind fixed in knowledge, 
acting only as a religious duty, all his acts are destroyed (that is, 
have no binding effect). 287 Therefore one should act without 
interest in the result of the action, without “desire or hate.” Indif- 
ference is the great desideratum. It is the same as inaction in effect. 
It guarantees freedom from the binding effect of “karma.” “Whoso 
neither loathes nor desires is to be regarded as having permanently 
abandoned (action). For he who is free from the ‘pairs’ (of oppo- 
sites) is easily freed from the bondage (of existence).”*** “He 
should not be delighted at attaining pleasure, nor should he be dis- 
tressed at attaining pain.” **° He should “hold alike pleasure and 
pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat.” 1*° 

As I have said, the Gita goes so far as definitely to oppose the 
quietistic life. It advises participation in action, in the affairs of 
life, though always with an unselfish spirit. ‘On action alone let 
thy aim be fixed, never on its fruits. Be not influenced by the fruits 
of action; but cleave not to inaction.” #4 “Therefore perform ever 
disinterestedly acts that should be performed. For in performing 
actions disinterestedly a man reaches the highest goal.” 4? “Whoso 
performs actions that should be performed, without interest in the 
fruits of action, he is the ascetic, he the disciplined man, and not he 
who (merely) builds no (sacrificial?) fires and performs no (reli- 
gious?) acts.” 4° It even goes so far as to hint at insincerity on the 
part of some renouncers of action, intimating that their thoughts 


137 4, 19-23, 

138 5 3, 

139 5.20. 

140 2, 38, 

1412, 47, 

142 3.19, 

1486.1. These expressions are somewhat ambiguous but seem to refer to 
ascetics who renounced the formal rites of established religion. On the attitude 
of the Gita towards established religion see my tenth chapter. 





60 — CHAPTER VII 


may be more worldly than their actions; although perhaps all that 
is intended is to emphasize in the strongest possible way the impor- 
tance of the mental attitude, rather than of the physical act: “Whoso 
restrains his organs of action and sits pondering on the objects of 
sense with his mind,—his soul is deluded; he is called a hypocrite. 
But whoso restrains his sense-organs with his mind, and with his 
organs of action engages in discipline-of-action’** (disciplined 
action), without self-interest,—he is superior.” **° Harsh penance 
or self-torture, as practised by some extreme sects of Hindu ascetics, 
is especially reprobated as doing violence to God, who is within 
man’s person.14* The true ascetic, according to the Gita, is he who 
“renounces” not actions, but selfish interest in actions: ‘“Renuncia- 
tion of actions due to desires is what the sages hold to be (true) 
renunciation. Abandonment of the fruits of all actions the wise call 
(true) abandonment.” *47 Moreover, the ascetic position is an im- 
possible one, since complete cessation of action is out of the ques- 
tion; he who lives must act more or less.1#® God Himself acts, 
though of course unselfishly ; and of course He cannot be bound by 
action.14® Without His action the world would not run; He keeps 
the universe going and thus sets an example of unselfish action to 
mankind, and the noble man should follow this example, thus him- 
self setting an example for the common herd.?*° Action is inevitable 
because it is material nature that acts, through the power of past 
actions which compel future actions as their result ; to seek to oppose 
the irresistible power of nature is folly.15! “Not by not undertak- 
ing actions does a man attain to freedom from action, and not by 
mere withdrawal (ascetic renunciation) does he attain perfection. 
For there is no one whatsoever that remains even a single moment 
without performing actions. For every man is forced to perform 
actions willy-nilly, by the qualities (the three gunas) that spring 
from material nature.” 15? 

But granting that man should perform acts, and should not try 
to remain inactive, the question still remains, what kind of acts 
should he perform? Of course, whatever he does should be done 
in an unselfish spirit, without hope of reward or fear of suffering; 


ce We ais have more to say of “discipline” in Chapter VIII. 
146 17.6. 

147 18.2. 

148 3.8; 18.11. 

149 3, 20-25, especially 22; 4.14; 9.9. 

150 3. 20ff 

151 18, 60; SPREE 


1823.4 5, 


ACTION AND REBIRTH 61 


but this is not a sufficiently explicit guide in choosing between the 
manifold possibilities of conduct that lie open to man. The Gita 
tells us that “perfect action is called that which is enjoined by duty, 
free from attachment, performed without desire or repulsion, by 
one who does not seek the fruits thereof.’ *** “Duty” perhaps 
means religious duty here; this seems supported by some other pas- 
sages: “Mankind is bound by action, with the exception of action 
whose object is religious duty;1** perform actions for that object, 
abandoning interest (in the results).” 75° Religious, charitable, and 
penitential acts are not binding but “purifying,” and should be per- 
formed.*** In other passages, however, “duty” clearly includes acts 
which cannot possibly, by any stretch, be included in this category. 
Thus the “duty” of a kshatriya, a member of the warrior caste, is to 
fight.15’ This is in keeping with a familiar traditional theory among 
the Hindus, according to which men have different natural duties 
according to the caste or station in life in which they are born. The 
performance of religious rites is the natural duty of brahmans; 
fighting (also giving of alms, protection of the people, and so forth) 
is that of warriors or nobles; commerce and husbandry of the 
vaishya caste; service, of the shtidra caste, which theoretically con- 
sists of serfs. The Gita accepts this theory, and even devotes sev- 
eral stanzas'®** to a definite statement of it, naive and primitive as 
it seems to us.1°® It says that a man should perform his own native 
duty, that is, the duty which comes to him by birth, from the caste 
or station to which he belongs, “to which it has pleased God to call 
him,” “even though this duty be imperfect,” rather than attempt a 
duty that pertains to another social group. Again, with a differ- 
ent turn, man is told to do the things that are commanded of God, 
throwing the responsibility on Him, and not seeking to question His 
wisdom. By so doing, man is freed from the bondage of “karma.”?* 
It is sinful pride to refuse to obey God’s commands, thinking that 

1538 18 23, 

154 The word here used means literally “sacrifice”; but it is used in the 
Gita in a way which seems to include by extension any kind of duty enjoined 
by religion. 

155 3.9; cf. 4.23, “if one acts for religious duty, all his acts are wiped out.” 

156 18, 3, Sn, 

LO teas S |e 

158 18. 41-44, 

159 As naive and primitive, let us say, as the theory that it is the natural 
duty of one man to work twelve hours in a steel-mill, and that of another to 
spend five or six hours in a New York office managing the financial affairs of 
that mill and others. 


160 3.35; 18.45-48. 
161 330-32. 


62 CHAPTER VII 


you know better than God.1®? We may see in these various discus- 
sions of “duty,” as either innate in the social order or founded on 
divine commands, groping attempts to formulate definite answers 
to the very natural question, what concrete acts does “duty” require 
of man? But it is hardly possible to conceal the unsatisfactory 
nature of the Gita’s conclusions on this point. The writer, at least, 
cannot blame Arjuna for inquiring: “If thou holdest the attitude of 
mind to be more important than action, then why dost thou com- 
mand me to do this savage deed, O Krishna?’ 7° Why, indeed, 
should one fight and slay, even “unselfishly”? This eminently rea- 
sonable question is shamelessly dodged by Krishna; no real answer 
is given—perhaps because none can be given.**% And more often 
the Gita attempts no concrete definition of duty, but contents itself 
with saying that man should do his duty simply because it zs his duty, 
and with perfect indifference to the results—reminding us of Kant’s 
categorical imperative. ‘ 


We must, however, refer to another attempt to define duty which 
the Gita repeatedly presents, and which not only furnishes a very 
high ethical standard, but is a logical deduction from the best Hindu 
metaphysics. If God is in all beings, if the soul or real self of all 
beings is One, it follows that “The wise look alike upon a learned 
and cultivated brahman, a (sacred) cow, an elephant, a dog, and a 
hunter.’ 7°° All beings are one in God; by true knowledge “thou 
shalt see all beings without exception in thyself, and in Me.” 1® “He 
whose soul is devoted to discipline, seeing the same in all things, 
perceives himself in all beings, and all beings in himself,’ +*? and 
“Me (God) in all and all in Me.” °° Accordingly one should behave 


Ba 18.58, 59. 
S571 


164] have tried to put the best possible light on the Gita’s teachings in this 
regard, and have ignored for this purpose certain verses in which the “duty” 
to fight is enjoined upon Arjuna on still lower grounds, as on the ground that 
he will be suspected of cowardice if he withdraws from the battle, and so will 
be despised of men (2.34ff.; contrast 14.24, which says one must be indiffer- 
ent to praise and blame), or even on the ground that if he is slain he will gain 
heaven (alluding to the popular Hindu belief in a sort of Valhalla for war- 
riors slain in battle), while if he conquers he will enjoy rule over earth (2.37). 
These intrusions of popular ideas, while certainly unworthy of the philosophic 
standard of most of the Gita, need not be considered interpolations. They 
simply illustrate the fact to which I have often alluded, that the Gita is not a 
logical or systematic philosophical treatise, but a poem, containing many incon- 
sistencies in ethical as well as metaphysical notions. 

1655.18. Dogs are very unclean animals in India; and hunters are among 
the ceva auc most despised of social groups. 


167 6.29, 
168 6. 30. 


’ 


ACTION AND REBIRTH 63 


in the same way towards friend and foe, kinsman and stranger, good 
men and bad ;1°° namely, towards all as one would towards oneself. 
“Whoso looks upon all beings in the same way as upon himself, and 
sees likeness in all, whether it be pleasure or pain, he is called the 
supreme yogin (disciplined man).”’17° Those who are completely 
pervaded by the consciousness of this truth, who feel that all beings 
are the same as themselves, that all as well as themselves are one 
with God, are freed from the effects of action and from rebirth; for 
they, of course, will not “injure themselves (in others) by them- 
selves” ;171 they “identify their own souls with the souls of all crea- 
tures, and even when they act are not affected (‘stained’) there- 
by.” 17? “Even in this life, rebirth is overcome by those whose minds 
are fixed in the consciousness-of-sameness. For Brahman is fault- 
less and alike (the same, in all creatures). Therefore such men 
are fixed in Brahman.” 17* “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” 
—because thy neighbor ts thyself ; God is in both thee and thy neigh- 
bor, and both are in God. He who acts in this spirit need not fear 
that his acts will bind him to further existence.'™4 


169 6,9, 

170 6, 32, 

171 13,28, 

1725.7. 

173 5.19, 

174 Compare Chapter XI. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE WAY OF DISCIPLINED ACTIVITY 


HE dispute between those who held that all actions were bind- 

ing, that is, involved man in continued existence, and those who 
maintained that acts performed with “indifference” to the results had 
no such effect, appears to have been only one aspect of a broader dif- 
ference of opinion. So far we have spoken of what we have called 
the ascetic position as if it were a purely negative doctrine, teaching 
merely that man shall be saved by abstention from actions. But we 
learn from the Gita that the school of thought against which its 
arguments on this subject are chiefly directed had a much more 
important positive theory of salvation, which is strictly in accord 
with the most fundamental principles of Hindu speculation from 
the Upanishads (and even before them) onward, and to which the 
Gita itself feels forced to admit a considerable validity. This posi- 
tive theory was no other than the “way of knowledge” which we met 
in Upanishadic thought, and which we traced back to its origins in 
the earliest Vedic speculations ; the theory that by perfect knowledge 
man can control his destiny ; that “the truth shall make” him “free.” 
So ingrained in Hindu thought is this belief in the power of 
supreme esoteric knowledge that probably no Hindu system would 
venture to deny it. The Gita certainly does not. In many verses 
it recognizes it as explicitly as possible. “Even if thou shouldst 
be the worst of all sinners, merely by the boat of knowledge thou 
shalt cross over all (the ‘sea’ of) evil.”"7> “As a kindled fire burns 
firewood to ashes, so the fire of knowledge burns all deeds to 
ashes,” +7® that is, frees man from rebirth, the effect of deeds. Doubt, 
the opposite of knowledge, is fatal; the ignorant doubter cannot hope 


for bliss.177 Man must “cut doubt with the sword of knowledge.” 278 


175 4,36, 
176 4.37. 
177 4.40, 
178 4.41, 42. 


WAY OF KNOWLEDGE AND WAY OF ACTION 65 
Knowledge is better than mere ritual religion: “Better than material 
sacrifice is the sacrifice (that consists) of knowledge. All action 
(karma) without exception is completely ended in knowledge.” *” 
What knowledge? The knowledge of the supreme religious truth 
which each system professes to teach. Thus in the Gita it is most 
often knowledge of God. Whosoever knows the mystic truth of 
God’s nature is freed from rebirth and goes to God.1*° But else- 
where it is, for instance, the knowledge of the absolute separateness 
of soul and body, the independence of the soul from the body ana all 
its acts and qualities, which brings release from rebirth.1** In fact, 
the Gita, like the Upanishads, tends to promise complete emancipa- 
tion to one who “knows” any particularly profound religious or phil- 
osophic truth which it sets forth. This seems to have been charac- 
teristic of Hindu systems generally, at least in their early stages. 
While different thinkers differed in their formulations of the 
supreme truth, by knowing which man should gain salvation, it 
appears that another and perhaps a more important difference, from 
the practical standpoint, was in their doctrines of method, or in the 
varying degrees of emphasis laid on various possible methods, for 
attaining enlightenment. The Gita refers several times to such dif- 
ferences of method. In one passage it tells us that “some by medita- 
tion come to behold the Self (Soul, dtman) by themselves (or, by 
Itself) ; others by the Sankhya discipline, and others by the disci- 
pline of Action. But others, while not having this knowledge, hear 
it from others and devote themselves to it; even they too cross over 
death, by devoting themselves to what is revealed.” 18? According 
to this, true knowledge—here spoken of as knowledge of the dtman, 
the Self or Soul (the context indicates that the author is thinking 
of the individual soul, as distinguished from matter, rather than of 
the universal soul)—may be gained in various ways: first, by inner 
meditation ; then, by what is called the Sankhya discipline, and by the 
“discipline of action”; and fourthly, by instruction from others, if 
one cannot attain to it by himself. All these methods are possible; 
all lead to salvation, to “crossing over death,’ which implies also 
escape from rebirth, since rebirth leads to redeath. 
It is necessary to consider what the author means by the ‘“San- 
khya discipline” and the “discipline of action.” These are technical 
terms, which require very careful definition. The word which { 


179 4, 33, 

1804.9 10; 7.19; 10.3; 14.1ff. 

1815.16, 17 (cf. the preceding verses) ; 14.22-25. 
182 13,24, 25. 


66 | CHAPTER VIII 


translate “discipline” is yoga. The phrase “discipline of action’’ ren- 
ders a Sanskrit compound, karma-yoga. Elsewhere the word yoga 
alone is used in the sense of karma-yoga; that is, “discipline,” when 
otherwise undefined, means in the Gita frequently (and indeed 
usually) the “discipline of action.” The word yoga is unfortunately 
a very fluid one, used in a great variety of senses ; this makes it often 
hard to give an exact definition of its meaning in any given occur- 
rence. It may mean simply “method, means.” It also means “exer- 
tion, diligence, zeal.” And especially it is used to describe a regular, 
disciplined course of action leading to a definite end; in the Gita 
and works of its type, to the end of emancipation. In some contem- 
porary works it connotes a system of ascetic practices culminating 
in a sort of self-hypnosis, conceived as leading to emancipation, or 
to some supernatural attainment. It always denotes, in works of 
the time of the Gita, a practical method, as distinguished from an 
intellectual method. But in the Gita its meaning is narrowed down. 
Here it means the method of salvation which is characterized by 
participation in normal, worldly action (hence the fuller expression 
karma-yoga, which is synonymous with yoga alone in this sense) 
without interest in the fruits of action. Action characterized by 
indifference is the central principle. ‘Yoga is defined as Indiffer- 
ence,” says one verse.1®* But it is always an indifference in action. 
The word yoga definitely implies activity, as it is used in this con- 
nection in the Gita, where it is constantly colored by more or less 
subconscious association with the other meaning of the word, “ener- 
getic performance, exertion.” It is then opposed to the system or 
“rule” or “discipline” (the same word yoga is also used, confusingly) 
of the Sankhya, which is elsewhere called the jndna-yoga or “dis- 
cipline of knowledge”: “In this world a two-fold foundation (of 
religion) has been expounded by Me of old; by the discipline (or, 
method) of knowledge of the followers of Sankhya, and by the 
discipline (or, method) of action of the followers of Yoga.’ 1% 
The word sankhya seems to mean “based on calculation”; that 
is, “philosophical, reflective, speculative method.” 18° The adherents 
of this method believed in knowledge as the supreme and exclusive 
means of salvation, and in particular, according to the Gita, they 


favored renunciation of all “works,” of all activities. In the verses 


183 2, 48, 

184 3,3, 

185 Another theory is that it means “dealing with numbers,” because the 
(later) system called by this name was characterized by many enumerated cate- 
gories. Though this interpretation is accepted by many distinguished scholars, 
it seems to me erroneous. 


WAY OF KNOWLEDGE AND WAY OF ACTION 67 


just following the one last quoted,?®* the Gita’s author argues against 
the policy of ascetic renunciation, clearly indicating that he is oppos- 
ing the doctrine of the Sankhya. In another passage sannydsa, a 
regular term for ascetic renunciation, is contrasted with karma-yoga, 
“discipline of action,” and in the next verse but one the same con- 
trast is expressed by the terms sadnkhya and yoga."** Further light 
as to the doctrines of the ‘“Sankhya” school is furnished by a pass- 
age in which a dissertation on the complete distinction between the 
soul and the body (see Chapter V) is followed by this verse: “This 
(preceding) is the point of view set forth in the Sankhya; but hear 
now this (point of view set forth) in the Yoga.” 18° The “knowl- 
edge” which the Sankhya taught, therefore, was or included the 
dualistic doctrine (familiarly accepted in the Gita) that soul and 
body are two eternally separate entities.1® 

We have seen that many passages in the Gita fully recognize the 
value of knowledge as a means of salvation. We have also found 
in various connections that the Gita is very catholic and tolerant; 
that it is much inclined to admit validity to different points of view. 
We need not, therefore, be surprised to learn that in several places 
it definitely recognizes both the Sankhya and the Yoga methods as 
effective. It even asserts that they are really one at bottom; which 
is simply another way of saying the same thing, that they both lead 
to salvation. “Fools say that Sankhya and Yoga are different, not 
the wise. One who devotes himself only to one of these two obtains 
completely the benefits of both. The station that is obtained by the 
followers of Sankhya is also reached by the followers of Yoga. 


Whoso looks upon Sankhya and Yoga as one has true vision.” 1° 


186 3. 4ff. 

187'5 2,4; 

1882.39. The preceding passage referred to is the discussion summed up 
in 2.30; there intervene a number of verses which are parenthetical and may 
possibly be a later interpolation, dealing with wholly unrelated matters. Prac- 
tically all the rest of the Chapter (vss. 47-72) is devoted to explaining the 
doctrine of yoga, namely, indifference in action (cf. especially 2.47, 48). 

189 J have felt it necessary to go into this matter somewhat technically 
because of the confusingly various ways in which these terms are used, and 
because of the further confusing fact that these same terms, Sankhya and 
Yoga, are later applied to two systems of philosophy which have found many 
adherents in India but which I think did not exist in codified forms at the 
time of the Gita. It seems to me that the later use of these two names is 
wholly different from their use in the time of the Gita, and that we can under- 
stand the Gita’s meaning better if we ignore that later usage. For instance, 
the later Sankhya system is atheistic; it denies the existence of any World- 
soul or God. But there is no suggestion of such a view in the “Sankhya” of 
the time of the Gita (in my opinion; the contrary has been maintained, but I 
think wrongly). The later use of the term “Yoga” developes out of another 


sort of Spica activity” than that indicated by the Gita as “Yoga.” 
190554 5: 


68 CHAPTER VIII 


“Abandonment (of action; that is, the “way of knowledge” or the 
Sankhya way) and discipline of action (karma-yoga; that is, the 
Yoga way) both bring the highest good.” 1% 

Yet the same verse of which I have just quoted a part goes on 
to say: “But of these two, discipline of action (karma-yoga) is bet- 
ter than abandonment of action (karma-sannydsa).” And the rea- 
son, which is given a few verses later, is very interesting. “Aban- 
donment, however, without discipline (yoga), is hard to attain. The 
sage who is devoted to discipline quickly (easily) goes to Brah- 
man.” 1°? Again, as above on page 49f., we find the Gita looking for 
the “easy way” to salvation, trying to meet the “man-in-the-street” 
half-way. It allows validity to the severe, more toilsome path of 
pure knowledge with ascetic renunciation of all activities. But few 
can travel that road. The Gita appeals to the masses; that is why 
it has always had so many followers. It claims that all the results 
which accrue to the follower of the strict intellectual method may 
also be obtained without withdrawing from action. Nay, it claims 
that even knowledge itself—the direct aim of the intellectual school 
—may be obtained through disciplined activity: “For there is no 
purifier in the world like knowledge. He who is perfected in dis- 
cipline (yoga) in due time finds it (knowledge) in himself.” 1®* From 
this point of view we may regard Yoga, disciplined activity, as an 
auxiliary means, useful in gaining the knowledge that shall bring 
release, just as devotion to God is elsewhere regarded in the same 
light.1°* This supports the thesis which I set forth in Chapter ITI,** 
that in Hindu speculation generally knowledge is to be regarded as 
the primary means of salvation, and all other methods are in origin 
secondary helps to the gaining of knowledge, however much they 
may come to overshadow the original aim. 


In the Gita, then, we find that the way of disciplined activity 
(yoga) is constantly favored at the expense of the way of knowl- 
edge and inactivity (sankhya), despite the statements quoted above 
to the effect that either one is good enough as a means of salvation. 
Discipline and the practiser of discipline (the yogin or “possessor of 
yoga,” or the yukta, “disciplined man’) are constantly praised and 
exalted. “The disciplined man, renouncing the fruit of action, gains 
final blessedness. The undisciplined, because he acts wilfully (or, 


1915.2. 

192 56, 

193 4,38, 

194 See page 74f. below. 
195 Pages 23, 25, 29. 


WAY OF KNOWLEDGE AND WAY OF ACTION 69 


according to his lusts), being attached to the fruits of action, is 
bound.” 18° If one practises this sort of disciplined activity even 
imperfectly, that is, without completely realizing it in life, still the 
effect of it is not lost but continues in future births, bringing man 
ever nearer and nearer to full attainment, until at last, by perfection 
in discipline, salvation is gained.1®’ Disciplined activity is superior 
“ not only to the “way of knowledge” but also to asceticism and to 
orthodox ritual religion: “The disciplined man (yogin, “possessor of 
discipline’) is superior to ascetics, and to the devotees of knowledge 
he is also considered superior, and to the devotees of (religious) 
works he is superior; therefore be disciplined, O Arjuna.” 1%* It is 
significant, however, that “love of God” is not subordinated to dis- 
ciplined activity in this list. On the contrary, the very next verse? 
adds that “the most perfectly disciplined man (yuktatama) is he who 
worships Me.” In the next chapter we shall take up the method of 
devotion to God. 

Readers may fairly ask for a more exact definition of what is 
meant by this “disciplined activity,” this yoga. The Gita does not 
fail to furnish it. It is implied by what has been said in this chap- 
ter and the preceding one. It consists in doing unselfishly whatever 
action seems to be required in any given circumstances; taking no 
interest in the results of the action to the doer, but not seeking to 
evade responsibility by refusing to act at all. The state of yoga is 
identified with “equanimity, stability of mind.” It is described espe- 
cially in a long passage in the second chapter of the Gita, of which 
I quote selections here:?° “Perform actions abiding in discipline, 
abandoning attachment (to the results), and being indifferent to suc- 
cess or failure; discipline is defined as indifference. For (mere) 
action is far inferior to discipline of mental attitude. Seek salvation 
in the mental attitude; contemptible are those that act with regard 
for results. He who is disciplined in mind leaves behind him in this 
life (the effects of) good and bad deeds alike. Therefore practise 
discipline; discipline in actions brings welfare. For the wise men 
that are disciplined in mind and abandon the fruits of action are 
freed from the bonds of rebirth and go to perfect bliss. . . . When 
one abandons all the desires of the mind and finds satisfaction by 


himself in his Self alone, then he is said to have ‘stability of mind’ 


196 5,12. 

197 6 37-45, 

198 6 46, 

198 6, 47, 

200 2.48-72. The word “discipline” in my translation always renders yoga, 
and “disciplined” renders the corresponding participle yukta. 


70 CHAPTER VIII 


(equanimity ; a synonym for ‘discipline’). He who is not perturbed 
by unhappiness and is without desire for pleasure, free from passion, 
fear, and anger, is called a stable-minded sage. He who is always 
free from desire, who when he is visited by this or that pleasant or 
unpleasant experience neither rejoices nor repines, his mind is stabil- 
ized. . . . For even the mind of an intelligent and earnestly striving 
man is violently carried away by the impetuous senses. Restraining 
them all he should abide in discipline, devoted to Me; for he whose 
senses are under control has a stabilized mind. . . . The man who 
abandons all desires and acts without longing, without selfishness, 
free from self-consciousness, attains peace.” 


In other passages special emphasis is laid on the idea contained 
in the phrase “when one abandons all the desires of the mind and 
finds satisfaction by himself in his Self alone.” What is meant is 
of course very different from what we mean by “selfishness.” The 
idea is that internal joys are the only true ones; external joys, that 
is, those which result from the senses through external stimulants, 
are both transitory and illusory. “He whose soul is not attached to 
external contacts finds the joy that is in the Self; his soul is disci- 
plined with the discipline of (1. e., that leads to) Brahman, and he 
attains eternal bliss. For the enjoyments that come from (outside) 
contacts contain in themselves the germs of pain; they are transitory 
(literally, ‘they have beginning and end’); the wise man finds no 
pleasure in them. He who even in this life, before being freed from 
the body, can overcome the disturbances that spring from desire and 
anger, he is disciplined, he is blessed. Whoso finds his joy, his 
delight, and his illumination within, he, the disciplined, becomes 
Brahman, and goes to the mirvana that is Brahman.” 2° “In which 
(state of yoga, discipline) the thoughts are quieted, held in check 
by the practice of discipline, and in which, contemplating the Self by 
the Self, one finds satisfaction in the Self; in which he experiences 
that infinite bliss which is perceptible (only) to the consciousness 
and is beyond the senses, and in which firmly established he cannot 
be moved from the truth; having gained which he realizes that there 
is no greater gain than it; abiding in which he is not moved by any 
sorrow, however great; he shall know this remover of all contacts 
with sorrow that is known as Yoga. This Yoga (discipline) should 
be practised with determination, with undistracted thought.’”2°? “But 
the man who finds his delight only in the Self, and his contentment 


201 521-24. 
202 6. 20-23. 


’ 


WAY OF KNOWLEDGE AND WAY OF ACTION 71 


and satisfaction only in the Self, for him there is (in effect) no 
action to be done. He can have no interest whatever in action nor 
yet in inaction in this world, nor has he any dependence of interests 
in all beings (that is, he cannot be affected for either better or worse 
by anything from outside of himself ).’’ 2° 


Of particular interest is one verse which speaks of moderation 
in all things as a characteristic of the “disciplined” follower of yoga: 
“There is no discipline in him who eats too much, nor yet in him 
who fasts completely ; neither in him who indulges in too much sleep, 
nor yet in him who sleeps not at all.” ?°* This very pointedly empha- 
sizes the opposition of the policy of “discipline” to that of asceticism, 
which was characterized by long-continued fasts, sometimes to the 
point of self-starvation, and by other extreme practices. This is 
one of the points of contact between the Gita and Buddhism, for 
Buddhism too makes much of the doctrine of the “golden mean,” 
opposing the extreme of self-torture as well as the extreme of 
worldliness.? 


In closing this chapter I wish to reaffirm the fact that, in spite 
of occasional disparagements of the “way of knowledge,” the Gita’s 
doctrine of disciplined activity really has an intellectual basis. The 
reason for acting with indifference is that actions cannot really affect 
the soul for good or ill; they concern matter exclusively. He who 
knows this will be steadfast in yoga, in indifference. This is brought 
out with admirable clarity in the last passage which I shall quote in 
describing the disciplined man: “As to both illumination and activity 
and delusion,?°* he neither loathes them when they appear nor longs 
for them when they have vanished (that is, he is indifferent to all 
material things). Taking part (in actions) as a disinterested par- 
ticipant, he is not perturbed by the (three) qualities (of matter) ; he 
stands firm and unmoved in the knowledge that it is only the qualities 
that are active. He is indifferent to pain and pleasure, and self-con- 
tained ; clods of earth, stones, and gold are all orie to him, pleasant 
and unpleasant things alike; he is steadfast, and careless of praise 
or blame. Unmoved by honor or dishonor, alike to friend and foe, 
renouncing all enterprises, he is declared to have transcended the 


203 3.17, 18. 

2046.16. 

205 Similar expressions occur, to be sure, in late texts of the (later, sys- 
tematic) “yoga” philosophy; and this point has been taken as an indication of 
interrelationship between the latter and Buddhism. See Oldenberg, Upanishaden 
und Buddhismus, p. 327. 

206 These are the characteristic marks of the three “qualities” of material 


-nature, sattva, rajas, and tamas; see page 39, 


42 CHAPTER VIII 


qualities (of matter).”?°’ In so far as the Gita quarrels with what 
it calls the Sankhya school, it is really not so much on the question 
of the power of knowledge, nor on the definition of what true 
knowledge is. It is rather because of the policy of complete absten- 
tion from actions which the Gita attributes to the followers of San- 
khya. This is directly opposed to the doctrine of activity with indif- 
ference, which the Gita usually preaches with all possible force— 
although, as we saw in the last chapter, it contains passages which 
are inconsistent even with this. 


207 14,22-25. 


CHAPTEROLXS 
THE Way oF DEVOTION To GoD 


T HAS required something like a tour de force to reserve for this 

place a treatment of the relation of God to human salvation in the 
teachings of the Gita. For in a sense it has involved temporarily 
ignoring the most cardinal doctrine of the poem. Yet the poem itself 
affords a precedent for approximately such an arrangement. The 
Gita does not begin with this subject; and references to it in the 
early chapters are few and scattering. In the middle chapters of the 
work it gradually becomes more prominent, until it finally occupies 
the center of the stage, with the climax in the eleventh chapter, in 
which the mystic vision of God’s supernal form is revealed to 
Arjuna.?°* After this, somewhat anti-climactically, the Gita gradu- 
ally drops into other themes again, to return to the theme of salva- 
tion through God towards the end of its final, summary chapter (the 
eighteenth). 

But in spite of our best efforts it has proved impossible to avoid 
some anticipation of this theme in the preceding chapters. In fact, 
with all the mixture of discordant theories which the Gita contains, 
it is nevertheless so prevalently and devoutly theistic that its theism 
colors many of its expressions on other themes. So the various 
schemes of salvation, largely inherited from Upanishadic specula- 
tion, are reinterpreted in the Gita in terms of its personal theism. 
The Upanishads taught that “knowledge” of the First Principle of 
the universe would lead to salvation. But the First Principle of the 
universe is God, declares the Gita. It follows that knowledge of 
God is what brings salvation.”°° Freedom from rebirth comes from 
attainment—not of an impersonal First Principle, but—of God.??° 


208 Page 54f. 
209 Page 65. 
2108.15, 16, etc. 


74 CHAPTER IX 


Knowledge, however, whether of Brahman or of a personal God, 
is “hard to attain,” as we have seen.”4t_ The difficulties of the intel- 
lectual method are emphasized in many places in the Gita. Easier 
for the most of mankind is a more emotional scheme of salvation. 
This is what the Gita furnishes by its famous doctrine of bhakti, 
“devotion” or “love of God.” Though not entirely unknown to the 
Upanishads,”’? it is virtually a new note in Hindu religious specula- 
tion. No doubt it originated in more popular forms of religion, 
which have left no written records. In the nature of things it could 
hardly be found, or at least could hardly be prominent, except in 
theistic religions. For “devotion” or “love” can hardly be felt 
except for a divine personality. That is why it is practically absent 
from the older forms of Hindu religion which are known to us.?!% 


Their divine principles were too impersonal. But we have good rea- 
son to believe that side by side with these abstract speculations there 


had long existed popular cults which worshipped various local gods 
and heroes; the Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita evidently originated 


‘as such a local deity. And it may fairly be taken for granted that in 


OER cape 


many or most of these cults the idea of devoted love of the god on 
the part of his worshippers, and perhaps vice versa, had played a 
considerable role.?"4 


We have already seen that the Gita’s religion is a compromise 
between the speculation of the intellectuals and the emotionalism of 
popular religion. So the notion of bhaktt, devotion, enters into its 
scheme of salvation by a side door, without at first displacing the 
old intellectual theory of salvation by knowledge. At least it is 
rationalized in this way. It is represented that by devoted love of 


God one can attain knowledge (of. God), and so indirectly the salva- 


tion which comes through this knowledge: “By devotion one comes 


211 “Among thousands of men perhaps one strives for perfection. Even of 
those who strive and perfect themselves, rarely does one know Me in very 
truth.” (7.3.) “Hard to find is the noble man who knows that Vasudeva (a 
name for Krishna=God) is all.” (7.19.) But: “Whoso always reveres Me with 
constantly fixed mind, for him I am easy to attain.” (8.14.) 

212 See page 26f. 

213 In the polytheism of the Rig Veda we do, indeed, find some traces of a 
relationship of love and trust between man and his gods, particularly as con- 
cerns the god Agni, the divine fire, who is found in every man’s house and is 
“the friend of man.” There is a wide gap, however, both in time and in spirit, 
between this and the “devotion” of the Bhagavad Gita. 

214 The striking correspondence in externals between the Gita’s bhakti and 
the Christian love of God led some, in earlier days, to believe that the Gita had 
borrowed the notion from Christianity. The correspondence is interesting, but 
it certainly does not justify such a theory. Undoubtedly, the two religions 
developed independently. The Gita is now known to be almost certainly pre- 
Christian in date. 


: 
’ 


THE WAY OF DEVOTION TO GOD ibe 


to know Me, what My measure is and what I am in very truth; then, f 
knowing Me in very truth, he straightway enters into Me.” 7*4*. So 
after the mystic revelation of his true form to Arjuna, Krishna de- 
clares that such a revelation can come to a man through no other 
means than devoted love: “But by single devotion it is possible to 
know Me in this form, Arjuna, and to behold Me in very truth, and 
(so) to enter into Me.’ *45 Thus it is possible logically to reconcile 
the theory of devotion with the theory so often expressed that 
knowledge of God is what brings man to union with Him, that is, to 
salvation. Devotion to God is an auxiliary means of gaining knowl- 
edge of Him. It may be significant that one of the Upanishad pas- 
sages which mention the method of “devotion” speaks of it in the 
same way, as a means of getting knowledge.**® 

But not for long—if ever consistently—was the way of devotion 
subordinated to the way of knowledge. Usually the Gita speaks of | 
devotion as the immediate and all-sufficient way to final union with | 
God. “Fix thy mind and devotion on Me; worship Me and revere 
Me. Thou shalt come even to Me by disciplining thy soul in full ~ 
devotion to Me.” 717 “Fix thy mind on Me alone, let thy conscious- 
ness sink in Me, and thou shalt come to dwell even in Me hereafter ; 
of that there is no doubt.”7** Even wicked men quickly become 
righteous and attain salvation through devotion to God; even low- 
caste men, and women (who are a low grade of creatures), may be 
saved in the same way; “no devotee of God is lost.” 719 . 


This quasi-miraculous salvation through devotion is frequently 
represented as due to special divine intervention on behalf of the 
devotee. God, as it were, cancels the laws of nature for the benefit 
of his devoted worshippers, and brings them to salvation by divine 
grace. “But those who, laying all actions upon Me, filled with Me, 
meditate on Me and revere Me with absolutely single devotion, these 
I will speedily rescue out of the ocean of the round of (rebirths and) 
deaths, because their thoughts are fixed on Me.” *° Therefore one 
should “abandon all other religions” and make God his sole refuge ; 
then “I will rescue thee from all evils; be not afraid!” 224. In another ° 
passage it is explained differently; God is represented as impartial 


214° 18.55. 

215 11,54. 

216 See page 26. 
217 9.34, 


218 12.8; similarly 8.7; 11.55. 
219 9. 30-32, 

220 12.6, 7. 

221 18.66; cf. 9.22. 


76 CHAPTER IX 


to all men, having no favorites, but still the devotee is, by reason of 
his devotion, united with God: “I am alike to all beings; none is 
either hated or loved of Me. But those who revere Me with devo- 
tion—they are in Me and I too am in them.” 2” 

Even “discipline” (yoga), of which so much was said in the last 
chapter as a favorite way of salvation, is granted to the devotee by 
God. This again seems to suggest that devotion is not the immedi- 
ate way to salvation, but a help towards it, in that it assists the 
devotee along the way—the way being here not the way of knowl- 
edge but that of “discipline.” “To those ever-disciplined ones that 
revere Me lovingly, I grant discipline of mind, and by that they 
come unto Me.” ??8 In the very next verse God grants the light of 
knowledge to the devotee: “Just out of kindness to them I, while 
remaining in My own true nature, destroy their darkness that is born 
of ignorance by the shining light of knowledge.” ?** All this simply 
amounts to saying that devotion is the way par excellence—that it is 
the key-road, which controls all other roads to salvation. The pass- 
age quoted at the end of the last chapter, describing the man who is 
perfectly disciplined and whose discipline is founded on true knowl- 
edge, is followed by this: “And he who reveres Me with the unswerv- 
ing discipline of devotion, surpasses these qualities (of matter) 
and becomes fit for the estate of Brahman (that is, for emancipa- 
tion). The way of knowledge and the way of disciplined activ- 
ity are allowed their place; but the way of devotion controls them. 
Similarly after a passage**® which sets forth the ascetic position, 
there is added the recommendation that the ascetic should fix his 
thoughts on God; by so doing he shall attain “the peace that culmi- 
nates in nirvana, and that rests in Me.” 227. We referred above to 
the significant fact that in a passage glorifying “discipline” (yoga), 
the disciplined man is declared to be superior to ascetics, to followers 
of the path of knowledge, and to those who adhere to the rites of 
orthodox religion, but not to adherents of the method of devotion 
to God; on the contrary, “the most perfectly disciplined man is he 
who devoutly reveres Me, with his soul fixed on Me.” 28 In one 
passage, which is curiously typical of the catholic or eclectic attitude 
which we have repeatedly noticed as characteristic of the Gita, we 


222 9 29. 

223 10.10. 

224 10,11. 

225 14.26. 

228 Quoted above, page 57f. 
2276.15. 

228 6.47; see page 69. 


’ 


THE WAY OF DEVOTION TO GOD pas 


are given to understand that God may be reached (and this implies 
complete emancipation) in several ways. First, we are commanded * 
to sink our hearts completely in loving devotion to God. “However, 
if thou canst not fix thy thoughts firmly on Me, then seek to win 
Me by practical discipline (that is, by yoga, ‘disciplined activity’). 
If incapable of practical discipline, then exert thyself in My work; 
by performing actions for My sake (as described in the next para- 


. graph) thou shalt also gain perfection. But if thou art unable even 


to perform actions with reliance upon My rule, then act with aban- ‘ 
donment of all fruits of action (that is, unselfishly, as set forth in 
Chapter VII), controlling thyself.” ?#° The way of devotion is the 
favorite one to the author of the Gita; but he admits the validity 
of other ways too, if for personal reasons a man finds them prefer- 
able. Still oftener, all these various ways are more or less vaguely 
blended and felt as in the last analysis essentially one; but the devo- 
tional coloring is perhaps the most constant characteristic of the 
blend. 


As indicated in the last quotation, the attitude of devotion to God 
has an important bearing on the question of action and its results 
under the doctrine of karma, discussed in my seventh chapter. Not 
only does duty require that one should do the commands of God,?*° 
but a sure way to escape any of the normal results of action, in con- 
tinued rebirth, is to “do all as a gift to God” or to “resign all actions 
to God”; that is, to throw upon Him all responsibility for actions; 
if one acts only in a spirit of loving devotion to God and of trust 
in Him, relying upon Him to settle the matter, He will save the 
devotee from the effects of action; that is, from further rebirth. 
“Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou offerest 
(in sacrifice), whatever thou givest, whatever penance thou per- 
formest, that do as a gift to Me. Thus thou shalt be freed from the 
bonds of action with its fruits, whether good or evil; thy soul shall 
be fixed in the discipline of renunciation, and thou shalt be freed 
and shalt attain unto Me.” #*4- Let a man perform his own natural 
duty?*? as a service to God: “A man finds perfection in worshiping 
Him from whom all beings spring, by whom this universe is per- 
vaded—by doing his own (natural) duty.” °° “Taking refuge in Me, 
though ever performing all acts, by My grace a man attains the eter- 

229 129-11. 

230 3 30-32. 


281 9 27-28. 


232 Cf. page 61. 
283 18.46 


78 CHAPTER IX 


nal, undying station. Casting mentally all acts upon Me, devoted to 
Me, cleaving to discipline of mind, keep thy thoughts ever fixed on 
Me.” 234 “Thinking on Me, by My grace thou shalt cross over all 
difficulties” ; refusal to do so would be a sign of pride and self-con- 
ceit, an indication that man thinks he knows more than God; such 
a man would perish; “material nature would ensnare” him.?** Nor 
need man fear that anything done in true, loving devotion to God 
will be ignored by Him. God accepts the humblest offering of His 
devotees, taking it in the spirit in which it is meant: “If a man 
‘offers Me with devotion (bhakit) a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or a sip 
of water—that loving gift of My devotee I accept (literally, I 
Peaby urna 

It is especially important that one should fix his mind on God at 
the time of death. According to a familiar belief among the Hindus, 
the attitude of mind at the hour of death is especially influential in 
determining man’s state after death.287 The following verse of the 
Gita expresses the traditionally accepted view: “Whatever condition 
of being one meditates on as he leaves the body at death, precisely 
to that condition he goes, his whole nature being infused there- 
with.” 7° That is why to this day all pious Hindus meditate on their 
respective sectarian deities, and recite their sacred mantras or holy 
formulas, at the hour of death, hoping thereby to gain salvation. 
Accordingly the Gita does not hesitate to promise this result to one 
who meditates on God at death: “He who at the time of his death 
passes out and leaves his body while meditating on Me alone, goes 
to My estate; of this there is no doubt.” 7° “(Whosoever thinks 
on God) at the time of his death with unswerving mind, disciplined 
(yukta) in devotion (bhakts) and in the power of discipline (yoga) 
too, making his breath to pass wholly into the space between his eye- 
brows, he goes to that supreme, divine Person (purusha).. . . Pro- 
nouncing the single (sacred) syllable Om (which is) Brahman, 
thinking upon Me, he who (thus) leaves the body and dies goes to 
the highest goal.” 24° 

234 18.56, 57. 

285 18 58, 59. 

286 9.26. 

237 Indeed, according to the Gita (8.23-27), the time of death is so impor- 
tant in determining man’s future fate, that the “disciplined man” and “knower 
of Brahman” attains freedom from rebirth if he dies at a favorable time, but 
is reborn again if he dies at an unfavorable time. Favorable times are “fire, 
light, day, the light half of the lunar month (when the moon is waxing), the 
six months during which the sun moves northward.” Their opposites are 


unfavorable. 
238 6, 239 8.5. 240 8.10, 13. 


THE WAY OF DEVOTION TO GOD 79 


The characteristics of the perfect devotee of God are very much 
like those attributed to the possessor of “discipline” as described in 
the last chapter. Indeed, the two are really one. The true pos- 
sessor of “discipline” will be devoted to God; devotion to God in- 
volves or brings with it perfection in discipline. Perhaps the note 
of joy, of bliss, is more definitely present in descriptions of the 
devotee than of the “disciplined” man. “Those whose thoughts 
and lives are centered upon Me, who are ever enlightening one 
another and telling about Me (giving ‘testimony,’ as some Christian 
sects say), are filled with joy and contentment.” ?*1 The true devotee 
is described in the following passage: “Not hostile but friendly and! 
compassionate to all creatures, unselfish and without egotism, indif- | 
ferent to pain and pleasure, patient, contented, ever disciplined, self- ’ 
controlled, of firm resolution; he who is devoted to Me and has 
fixed his mind and consciousness upon Me, is dear to Me. From 
whom people do not shrink and who does not shrink from people, 
who is free from the excitement of joy, impatience, fear, and agita- 
tion, he is dear to Me. Indifferent, pure, wise, disinterested, imper- 
turbable, abandoning all undertakings,—such a devotee of Mine is 
dear to Me. Who neither rejoices nor hates, neither grieves nor 
desires, who renounces pleasant and unpleasant objects, and is full 
of devotion, he is dear to Me. Who is the same to friend and foe, 
indifferent to honor and disgrace, to heat and cold, to joy and sorrow, 
who has abandoned all attachment, a sage to whom praise and blame 
are all one, content with whatsoever (his lot may be), having no 
fixed habitation, of steadfast mind, full of devotion, he is dear to 
Me. But those devotees of Mine who believe and accept this nectar 
of religious doctrine as I have expressed it (in the Bhagavad Gita), 
they are especially dear to Me.” ?4? 

The very heart, the quintessence, of the doctrines of the Gita is 
declared by Hindu commentators to be found in this verse :74* “He 
who does My work, who is devoted to Me and loves Me, who is 
free from attachment (to worldly things) and from enmity to all 
creatures, goes to Me, Son of Pandu!” 


241 10.9. 
49 12,19-2U, 
248 11.55. 


CELA DDG cx 


ATTITUDE TOWARDS HINDU ORTHODOXY AND OTHER RELIGIOUS 
BELIEFS 


HE curious many-sidedness, tolerance, or inconsistency—which- 

sver one may choose to call it—of the Bhagavad Gita, which we 
have noted in nearly every chapter of this book, is shown nowhere 
more strikingly than in its attitude towards what we may call ortho- 
dox, established religion. 

By this I mean the system of traditional sacrifices and observ- 
ances, founded ultimately upon the Vedic cult, which became ac- 
cepted by Brahmanism and were in the time of the Gita, and have 
remained even to this day, theoretically incumbent upon all pious 
Hindus, at least of the upper castes. This system of rites implied 
and implies very little in the way of beliefs. It was and is, almost 
exclusively, a matter of formal observances. It is a matter of con- 
formance to traditional propriety in actions ; so long as one conforms 
outwardly, it makes little difference what he believes inwardly. It 
does, to be sure, imply recognition of the privileged status of the 
brahman caste, as the hereditary custodians of the cult, and the 
nominal leaders of society. No sacrifice was supposed to be valid 
unless a brahman was hired to perform it. | 

The original theory of this orthodox cult is fairly stated in the 
Bhagavad Gita: “The gods, being propitiated by sacrifices, shall 
grant you the enjoyments you desire. He who without giving to 
them enjoys their gifts is nothing but a thief.” 744 That is, it is a 
matter of commercial bargaining between the old, traditional gods 
(not to be confused with the God of the Bhagavad Gita!) and men. 
The gods control benefits, and grant them in exchange for the grati- 
fications of the sacrifice. It is man’s duty to furnish these gratifica- 
tions ; otherwise he would be getting something for nothing. In this 

244 3.12. 


ATTITUDE TOWARDS OTHER RELIGIONS 81 


passage the Gita unhesitatingly commends this system. It even says 
that actions of the sacrifice have no binding effect,?*® and that sacri- 
ficers “are freed from all evil,” 74° although, to be sure, it adds that 
it is wicked to perform even such acts “selfishly,’**7—a statement 
that is hardly consistent with the theory of the ritual cult just quoted, 
which seems to imply that the whole basis of it is a matter of selfish 
“interest. The fact is, however, that this theory, which is inherited 
from Vedic times, is not ordinarily brought out clearly in the Gita 
or in other later religious texts. It is more often ignored or slurred 
over. The Gita contains passages in which sacrificial acts are spoken 
of as part of man’s duty and to be performed simply qua duty— 
“abandoning attachment.” 748 “Actions of sacrifice, alms, and 
penance are not to be abandoned; on the contrary they are to be 
performed. Sacrifice, alms, and penance are purifying for the wise. 
But even these actions are to be performed with abandonment of 
attachment and (of desire for) their fruits; that is my definite and 
final opinion.” 74° “Sacrifice which is offered as prescribed by the 
rules, by men who are not seeking the fruits thereof, simply because 
it is their duty to sacrifice, concentrating their minds, that is perfect 
sacrifice,” #59 

Otherwise it is possible by a mystic or symbolic interpretation of 
the word “sacrifice” to make it mean, or include, things which are 
quite different from commonplace ritual performance, and more in 
keeping with the general trend of the Gita’s teachings. In one pas- 
sage we find indeed a statement which sounds like a thorough-going 
acceptance of the ritual dogma: “Those who eat the ambrosia of the 
leavings of the sacrifice go to the eternal Brahman. Not even this 
world, still less any other, is allotted to him who does not sacri- 
fice.” 2® But in the surrounding stanzas”? the word “sacrifice’’ is 
interpreted as including many different kinds of religious practices: 
restraint of the senses, devotion to the Brahman, ascetic austerities, 
“disciplined activity” (yoga), study, and “knowledge”; and all these 
are recognized?** as forms of “sacrifice” that have their validity. It 
is added that “the sacrifice of knowledge is better than material 
sacrifice; all action (karma) without exception is completely ended 


245 3,9. 

246 3,13. 
247 3713. 
248 4 23. 
249 18.5, 6. 
250 17.11. 
261 4.31. 
252 423-33. 
258 4,30. 


82 CHAPTER xX 


in knowledge.” 754 The “sacrifice of knowledge” means, of course, 
the intellectual method of salvation, and equally of course it has 
nothing whatever to do with ritual sacrifices. It is only by mystic 
symbolism that the term “sacrifice” can be applied to it at all. 

On the other hand there are not wanting in the Gita passages 
which definitely disparage the ritual religion. “Those who take 
delight in the words of the Veda” are called “lacking in insight,” 
“full of desires, aiming at heaven”; their doctrines “entail rebirth 
and the fruits of actions,” and are “replete with various rites leading 
to enjoyment and power.” 75> “The Vedas belong to the realm of 
the three qualities (of material nature) ; be thou free from the three 
qualities!’ 25° There is even appended to this passage a verse which 
appears to contain a bitterly ironical thrust at the priestly caste, 
whose selfish interests were concerned in the perpetuation of these 
Vedic rites which required the participation of hired brahmans: “As 
much profit as there is in a well into which waters flow from all 
sides, so much is there in all the Vedas for a wise brahman.” 25? 
Such anti-clericalism is startling in a work like the Gita, which in 
general avoids any formal break with the established religious and 
social order. It would be more natural in a Buddhist text. Yet we 
find not dissimilar expressions in older works which pass for ortho- 
dox.”8 And, if so pronounced a polemic attitude is exceptional, 
there are various other passages which treat the ritual religion with 
scant respect. A man who gets out of the “jungle of illusion” will 
become disgusted with the revealed religion or holy “tradition,” and 
in turning against this holy “tradition” he will acquire discipline 
(yoga).?*® God’s true form can never be known through religious 
works,.?®° He does not reveal Himself to the adherents of the tradi- 
tional cult, nor even to the gods to whom that cult is devoted, who 
long in vain for a sight of Him ;?** they know nothing of His nature 
and origin, and the seers (rishis) who are the reputed authors of 
the Vedic hymns are equally ignorant.?® 


254 4.33. 

255 2.42, 43. 

256 2.45, 

257 2.46. 

258 Tt is therefore unnecessary to suppose that the verse 2.46 is to be under- 
stood seriously, not ironically—which would imply that it was an insertion put 
in by a believer in orthodox religion who desired to answer the preceding 
verses in disparagement thereof. While this theory is not impossible I regard 
it as unlikely. 

2592. 


52, Ode 


262 10.2, 14. 


ATTITUDE TOWARDS OTHER RELIGIONS 83 


The orthodox cult is put in its place, so to speak, in the state- 
ment that “those who desire the full fruition of (ritual) acts sacri- 
fice in this world to the gods.” 7** That is, if you want the sort of 
thing that sacrifice is designed to accomplish, by all means sacrifice, 
and you will get it. It is a low sort of aim; but such as it is, if one 
honestly seeks it, he shall find it. And that precisely because of his 
sincerity and devotion to what he conceives, however mistakenly, 
to be his religious duty. “Those whose intelligence is obscured by 
reason of their desires for this or that (fruit of religious actions) 
resort to other deities (than Me); they take up various religious 
systems, being limited by their own natures.” ?** If they are sincere, 
they get the fruit they seek; but it is the one true God, whom they 
know not, who gives it to them. “Whoever seeks to worship with 
true faith and devotion any other form (of deity), for him I make 
that same faith firm, and, being disciplined in that faith, he devotes 
himself to worship of that (form of deity), and obtains therefrom 
suitable desires, though it is none but I that grant them!’ ?°> True 
and righteous ritualists, “worshipping Me by means of sacrifices,” 
duly succeed in gaining the sensuous heaven which is one of the tra- 
ditional rewards of ritualism, and enjoy divine pleasures there.?* 
But of course this is a very limited form of success. Such “heavenly” 
existences are finite; they belong to the round of rebirths just as 
much as do earthly human lives. When the effect of their religious 
merit is exhausted, such men fall to earth again.?®* All that has 
nothing to do with the real goal of man, which is release from all 
existence. 

What is true of orthodox ritualism is true of all other sorts of 
religion. Any religion is better than none. Whole-hearted and 
unqualified condemnation is reserved for those “‘demoniac” (wicked) 
men who “say that the world is untrue, without any basis (religious 
principle upon which to rest), without God, not produced in orderly 
sequence, in short, governed by chance (or, by desire, lust).” 7®* The 
“materialistic” school here referred to is accused by its opponents of 
having taught that all religion and philosophy were nonsense; that 
there was no guiding principle in the world; that all was chance; that 
the alleged moral law of the effect of deeds on the doer was base- 


less ; that there was no soul, and no life after death; and that con- 


268 4,12. 
264 7.20. 
265 7.21, 22. : 
aoe eet 
S67, 00214 
268 16.8. 


84 CHAPTER X 


sequently the wise man was he who devoted himself to getting as 
much worldly enjoyment out of life as he could. Such doctrines are 
of course abhorrent to the Gita, as to all the accepted forms of Hin- 
duism. On the other hand, those who genuinely though erroneously 
worship other gods are really worshipping the true God, though they 
do not know it; and God accepts their worship, imperfect though 
it be. ‘Even those who are devoted to other deities and worship 
them, filled with faith, they too really worship Me, though not in 
correct fashion. For I am both the recipient and the lord of all wor- 
ship (literally, ‘of all sacrifices’). But they do not know Me aright. 
Therefore they fall.” 2° “They fall” ; that is, the “heavenly” rewards 
which they attain are finite, and upon the exhaustion of the merit 
acquired by their sincere though mistaken religious practices, they 
return to ordinary worldly life again. “But finite are these fruits 
which come to such ignorant men. Those who revere the (popular 
or ritualistic) gods go to the gods; those who revere Me go to 
Me.” 27° So each religion brings its suitable reward. “Devotees of 
the gods go to the gods; devotees of the ‘fathers’ (spirits of the 
dead), to the ‘fathers’; worshipers of the demons go to the demons; 
but My worshippers go to Me.” ?** And, as the last paragraph shows, 
it is really through the one God that the followers of other religions 
gain their objects. Since those objects are necessarily imperfect and 
limited, because their seekers are by definition ignorant of the true 
goal of man, it remains true that one should “abandon all (other) 
religions” and make (the one true) God alone his refuge.?7? 


269 9.23, 24. 
270 7.23. 
2719.25. 
272 18.66. 


CHAPTER XI 
PractTicaAL Moratity 


HE Gita’s attitude toward practical morality is characteristic of 

most Hindu religions. In its relation to the ultimate goal of 
salvation, morality is only a secondary means. It alone is never suf- 
ficient to achieve that goal. But on the other hand it leads to ever 
better and higher existences, and helps to prepare for final success.?"* 
The importance of morality comes out most clearly on the nega- 
tive side. Immorality is clearly regarded as a serious, indeed 
usually a fatal, hindrance. To be sure we are told that “if even a 
very wicked man worships Me with single devotion, he is to be 
regarded as righteous after all; for he is established in truth” ;?% 
and again that “even if thou shouldst be the worst sinner of all sin- 
ners, thou shalt cross over all (the ‘sea’ of) evil merely by the boat 
of knowledge.” **> These passages suggest a sort of magic absolu- 
tion from sin by devotion to God, or to knowledge, as the case may 
be. It might be inferred from them that it makes little or no dif- 
ference what a man may do, so long as he succeeds in possessing 
himself of the key to salvation. This is, however, probably not a 
fair inference from the Gita’s words. In the first place we must 
remember that the Gita is poetic in its language and not infrequently 
emphasizes its ideas by a certain overstatement. To drive home the 
importance of “devotion” or “knowledge” it attributes to each of 
them in turn the power to absolve from the most heinous sins. Sec- 
ondly, the Gita undoubtedly means to imply a reformation and re- 
pentance on the part of the sinner as a prerequisite, or at least con- 
comitant, to the attainment of “devotion” or “knowledge.” We are, 
indeed, told elsewhere in definite terms that wicked men cannot, in 
the nature of things, possess true devotion or knowledge either. 


278 16.22. 
274 9. 30. 
275 4.3%. 


86 CHAPTER XI 


“Wicked and deluded evil-doers do not resort to Me; their intelli- 
gence is taken away by delusion, and they remain in the ‘demoniac’ 
condition.” 27° (We shall see what is meant by the “demoniac” con- 
dition in the next paragraph.) In another passage “knowledge” is 
defined at length in distinctly ethical terms; that is, he who is wise 
is necessarily also righteous, as Socrates said. Knowledge includes 
“freedom from haughtiness and deceit, harmlessness, patience, 
uprightness, devotion to one’s teacher, purity, constancy, self-control, 
lack of interest in the objects of sense, unselfishness,” and so forth; 
“indifference” and “devotion to God” are also included.?”" Again 
a description of the qualities of the perfected man, who is fit for 
union with Brahman, includes abstention from lust and hatred and 
from such vices as selfishness, violence, pride, desire, and anger.?7° 

The sixteenth chapter of the Gita is wholly devoted to a sort of 
practical moral code. It tells us that there are two kinds of “nature” 
or “condition” or ‘“‘estate’’ of man, the “divine” and the “demoniac’” ; 
that is, the good and the bad, the sheep and the goats. The good 
estate tends towards emancipation, the bad towards continued bond- 
age in existence.?”® That is, more explicitly, men who are bad or 
“demoniac” by nature are reborn again and again; they fail to reach 
God, and their fate is wretched,?®° while the good come finally to 
salvation.?** The good are characterized by “fearlessness, purifica- 
tion of being, steadfastness in knowledge and disciplined activity 
(yoga), almsgiving, self-control, sacrifice, (religious) study, penance 
and uprightness ; harmlessness, truth, freedom from anger, generos- 
ity, calmness, freedom from malice, compassion to all creatures, 
uncovetousness, gentleness, modesty, constancy; majesty, patience, 
fortitude, purity, non-violence, freedom from pride.” 78? The char- 
acteristics of the wicked are described and illustrated at much greater 
length. In general they are, of course, the opposites of the qualities 
just mentioned. But emphasis is laid on the ‘ignorance of the 
wicked,?** on their materialistic and atheistic philosophy,?** on their 
overweening pride and stupid self-confidence.?® “Resorting to 
egotism, violence, arrogance, lust, and anger, they hate Me in their 
own bodies and those of others, these envious men” ;?8 that is, by 
their misdeeds they wrong God, who is in themselves and in other 
men. All their vices are finally traced to three primary vices, desire 


276 7:1 Bi 282 os 

PTL eee Ab 288 16.7. 

ibs 18-51-53, | 284 eee a page 83f. 
79 16.5. 285 16.13ff. 

280 16,20. 286 16.18. 


281 16.22: 


PRACTICAL MORALITY 87 


or lust, anger, and avarice, “a threefold gate to hell, destroying the 
soul.” 287 He who is subject to them cannot hope for perfection or 
bliss.28° In another passage desire or lust and anger are referred to 
as the twin causes of all vice.?8° This seems indeed sufficient, since 
avarice or cupidity is only a specialized form of desire or lust. 
“Desire and loathing” is the formula in other places.?°° And since 
.. “loathing” is merely negative desire, while “anger” or “passion” is 
only a pragmatic manifestation or result of desire, whether positive 
or negative, we find that in the last analysis “desire” is the root of 
all evil.?9 

One positive feature of the Gita’s morality deserves especial 
mention. As we saw above at the end of Chapter VII, the meta- 
physical doctrine that the one universal Soul is in all creatures fur- 
nishes an admirable basis for a very lofty type of morality. Since 
one’s own Self or Soul is really identical with the Self or Soul of all 
other creatures,?** therefore one who injures others injures himself. 
“For beholding the same Lord (the universal Soul) residing in all 
beings, a man does not injure himself (his own self in others) by 
himself ; so he goes to the final goal.” 7°? Thus one of the most strik- 
ing and emphatic of the ethical doctrines of the Gita is substantially 
that of the Golden Rule. Man must treat all creatures alike, from 
the highest to the lowest,?®* namely like himself.2°° The perfected 
man “delights in the welfare of all beings.” ?°* This principle is 
usually regarded as perhaps the highest formulation of practical 
ethics that any religion has attained. It is interesting to see how 
naturally and simply it follows from one of the most fundamental 
tenets of the Gita’s philosophy. 


A genuine application of this moral principle would seem almost 
inevitably to include avoidance of any violent injury to living beings. 
And, as is well known, most Hindu sects have in fact applied it in 
this way, at least in theory, and to a considerable extent in practice. 
“Non-violence” or “harmlessness” (ahinsd) has generally been 
accepted as a cardinal virtue. It finds expression for instance in the 
vegetarian diet which so many Hindus have always favored, and in 
the policy of pacifism and “passive resistance’ which, while never 
adopted universally, has probably had more followers at every period 
in India than in most other lands, 


287 as 202 eis SIP A SPRAY Aad es 
288 16.23. 293 

289 3.37. 2045.18; cf. 6.9. 
200F. g., 3.34. 295 6.32. 


291 cr pages 21 and 58 above. 206/525, 


88 CHAPTER xI 


The Gita’s morality on this point is somewhat disappointing. It 
does indeed include “harmlessness” or ‘‘non-violence” (ahins@) in 
several of its lists of virtues.2®°* But it never singles it out for spe- 
cial emphasis. It seems to be content to let it lie buried in such more 
or less formal moral catalogs. One gets the impression that it was 
too prominent and well-recognized a virtue to be ignored; so some 
lip-homage is paid to it. But it is never definitely and sharply 
applied in such a form as “Thou shalt not kill.” The Gita contrasts 
strikingly in this respect with some other Hindu sects, such as the 
Buddhists and (still more) the Jains. It seems a little strange, 
at first sight, to find any Hindu religious text treating the doctrine 
of non-violence in so stepmotherly a fashion. But of course the 
reason is quite evident. The Gita is hampered by the fact that it 
is supposed to justify Arjuna’s participation in war. This dramatic 
situation is alluded to repeatedly, and the author seems to have it 
in the back of his head a large part of the time. To be sure, many 
of his doctrines are inconsistent enough with such a purpose, as we 
have abundantly seen. And we must not forget, either, that ‘“non- 
injury” is clearly implied in the Gita’s teachings on the subject of 
unselfishness and doing good to others. That is, to carry out these 
teachings in any real sense would necessarily involve doing no harm 
to living creatures. But to lay a frank and full emphasis upon this 
principle, to follow it out explicitly to its logical conclusion, would 
mean to run so glaringly counter to the professed aim of the piece, 
that it is not strange that the author avoids doing so. Even his 
catholicity seems to have shrunk from such an inconsistency as that. 
We can hardly help feeling, however, that he lost a golden oppor- 
tunity thereby. 


297 13.7 and 16.2, quoted on page 86; also 10.5 and 17.14. 


THIRD PART 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 


ws ' 
3 


baa fey a 
Ronn NS ik aR 


; 


7 ‘4 “ 7 J ¥ hod 
Samo ta, cette 
Mase Aart ROL PR 
4 A . Rr Ag Td de 


‘vee 


AAG 





CHAPTER XII 
SUMMARY 
First PART: PRELIMINARY CHAPTERS 


Chapter I. IJntroductory—The Bhagavad Gita, the Bible of 
Krishnaism, is dramatically a part of the Mahabharata. Its ostens- 
ible purpose is to prove to Arjuna, one of the heroes of that epic, 
the necessity and propriety of taking part in the battle which is the 
epic’s main theme. In actual fact, it is a mystic poem, dealing with 
the nature of the soul and body of man, man’s relation to God, and 
the way or ways by which man is to attain salvation. It is poetic, 
mystical, and devotional, rather than logical and philosophical. It 
contains many discordant ideas, and to try to unite them all in a 
consistent system is to do violence to its spirit. In this respect it is 
like all Hindu speculative literature of its time and earlier,—par- 
ticularly like the Upanishads, to which it owes many of its ideas. 
Like them, too, it is practical in its attitude, seeking religious or phil- 
osophic truth not for its own sake but as a means of human sal- 
vation. 


Chapter II. The Origins of Hindu Speculation—Out of the 
ritualistic polytheism, based on nature-worship, of the Rig Veda, 
developed on the one hand the pure ritualism of the Brahmana texts, 
on the other hand tentative speculations leading towards either 
monotheism or monism,—seeking to explain the constitution of the 
universe and of man in terms of a unitary principle. This unitary 
principle is at first often conceived concretely and physically; but 
with the passage of time the tendency is towards ever more abstract 
and metaphysical concepts, culminating in such expressions as “the 
Existent” (sat), or “the Self, Soul” (diman). The influence of rit- 
ualistic concepts is also evident, particularly in the idea of the Brah- 
man, the embodiment of the ritual religion, as a name for the prin- 


92 CHAPTER xII 


ciple of the universe. From very early times the texts conceive a 
parallelism as existing between the universe, the macrocosm, and 
man, the microcosm. 

Chapter III. The Upanishads, and the Fundamental Doctrines 
of Later Hindu Thought.—In the Upanishads this parallelism be- 
comes an identity: the Soul of the universe is identified with the 
Soul of man. In them, too, we find the first clear statements of the 
basic axioms of later Hinduism, which may be summed up as fol- 
lows. First, pessimism: all empiric existence is evil. Second, trans- 
migration, with the doctrine of karma: all living beings are subject 
to an indefinite series of reincarnations, and the conditions of each 
incarnation are determined by the moral quality of acts performed 
in previous incarnations. Third, salvation lies in release from this 
chain of existences; it is to be gained primarily by knowledge of the 
supreme truth, which has a quasi-magic power of giving its posses- 
sor control over his destiny. As secondary or auxiliary means of 
salvation are mentioned morality, asceticism in some form or other, 
and devotion to a supreme being or prophetic personality. These 
seem originally to have been conceived as aids to the attainment of 
saving knowledge, and they have little importance in the Upanishads ; 
but in various later sects one or another of them at times becomes 
so important as to obscure the originally primary aim of “knowl- 
edge.” 

Chapter IV. Prehtstory of the God of the Bhagavad Gita.—The 
Deity of the Gita seems to be a blend of the impersonal Upani- 
shadic Absolute with a popular god or deified hero, Krishna, who 
was identified with the Vedic god Vishnu. The combination thus 
formed contained, therefore, elements which could appeal to ortho- 
dox ritualists, to speculative intellectuals, and to the untutored 
masses. 


SECOND PART: THE TEACHINGS OF THE BHAGAVAD GITA 


Chapter V. Soul and Body.—All creatures are composed of two 
eternal and eternally distinct elements, soul and body. The body, 
which includes what we call psychic elements, is material; is subject 
to evolution, devolution, and change of all sorts; and consists of a 
blend of various qualities. The soul is immaterial, uniform, unchange- 
able, without qualities, and inactive. All action is performed by 
the material body, upon other material bodies or substances. The 


SUMMARY 93 


soul neither acts nor is affected by action; indeed it is not affected 
by any influence outside of itself. It has only contemplative powers. 
Ordinary creatures, however, confuse body and soul, owing to the 
disturbing influence of the material organ of self-consciousness, and 
imagine that their souls act and suffer. The enlightened man real- 
izes the true distinction between soul and body; his soul is thereby 
freed from the bondage of connection with the body, whence come 
action and suffering; and he attains release. 

Chapter VI. The Nature of God.—God is conceived as the First 
Principle of the universe, the Soul of all; the highest or best part 
of all; the noblest aspect of all; immanent in all (sometimes even in 
what is considered evil, but sometimes only in what is considered 
good). God seems generally to be regarded as a principle distinct 
from either the soul or the body of individual beings, though they 
are all “in Him.” He transcends the universe. Sometimes the 
Upanishadic Brahman seems to be identified with God; but at other 
times Brahman is distinguished from God, and is then ordinarily 
subordinated to Him. At times God is thought of dualistically ; his 
“lower nature” is the empiric, material universe, his “higher nature” 
is supernal and beyond the ken of empiric creatures. God takes on 
individual incarnations to save the world of men; such an incarna- 
tion is Krishna. His supreme form is revealed only as a rare act 
of grace to His elect; such an act of grace is granted to Arjuna, 
who beholds God’s very Self in a mystic vision. 

Chapter VII. Action and Rebirth_—Any action, good or bad, 
must normally have its effect in continued existence for the doer. 
But the Gita says that this is due not to the action as such, but to 
desire underlying the action. Acts performed with indifference to 
the results, without interest in the outcome, have no binding effect. 
It is therefore unnecessary to renounce action altogether. It is even 
improper to do so—as well as impossible. We cannot refrain from 
action if we would, and we should not if we could. Man must do 
his duty, without desire or fear of the consequences. Most often 
duty is not defined ; we are told simply to do our duty qua duty, as a 
sort of categorical imperative, without selfish interest. At other 
times attempts are made to define duty in terms of religious or social 
requirements, or on the basis of the oneness of man with his neigh- 
bors and with God, from which is deduced the duty of treating 
others as oneself. 

Chapter VIII. The Way of Knowledge and the Way of Disci- 
plined Activity—The Gita distinguishes two schools of thought 


94 CHAPTER xII 


which it calls Sankhya and Yoga. By Sankhya it means the doc- 
trine of salvation through the power of perfect knowledge, implying 
withdrawal from the world and renunciation of actions. By Yoga 
it means the opposing doctrine that one should seek emancipation by 
unselfish performance of duty. Both of these doctrines are recog- 
nized as leading to salvation, and in particular the power of knowl- 
edge is fully admitted in various places. Nevertheless the Gita 
usually prefers the way of “indifference in action” or “disciplined 
activity,” which is spoken of as leading to knowledge, or else as 
bringing salvation directly, and more “easily” than the way of 
knowledge and inaction. 

Chapter IX. The Way of Devotion to God—tThis is a still 
“easier” way of gaining salvation, and is most favored of all in the 
Gita, although it too is at times spoken of as bringing man to sal- 
vation indirectly, by perfecting him in “knowledge” or “discipline.” 
By filling his being with love of God, and doing all acts as a service 
to God, man attains union with Him; that is, salvation. Sometimes 
God is spoken of as Himself intervening to help his devotees towards 
this goal. It is particularly important that man should fix his mind 
on God at the hour of death; this has a special tendency to bring 
the soul of the dying man to God. 

Chapter X. Altitude Towards Hindu Orthodoxy and Other 
Religious Beliefs —The Gita contains some expressions that are dis- 
tinctly hostile to the orthodox ritualistic religion. In general, how- 
ever, it is tolerant of it, or even recommends the “disinterested” 
performance of its rites, as a matter of “duty.” Towards rival reli- 
gions in general its attitude is broad and tolerant; it admits a quali- 
fied validity to all acts of sincere religious devotion. 

Chapter XI. Practical Morality—While morality has only minor 
importance in the Gita’s scheme of salvation, immorality is usually 
regarded as a fatal obstacle to it. Desire is the most fundamental 
cause of vice. The most prominent specific ethical principle in the 
Gita is that of doing good to others, treating others as oneself. Yet 
the injunction to do no harm to any living creature, though it is a 
logical inference from that principle and though it is very prominent 
in most Hindu ethical systems, is barely mentioned in the Gita and 
receives no emphasis. 


CHAPTER XIII 
CoNCLUSION 


T HAS been my purpose in this book to let the Bhagavad Gita tell 

its own story in the main, with as little comment of my own as 
possible. However, the mere topical arrangement of the Gita’s 
materials is in itself an implied comment; for it is wholly foreign 
to the Gita itself, which constantly juxtaposes unrelated matters 
and widely separates passages dealing with the same subjects. And 
it has seemed to me, after all, neither desirable nor possible to refrain 
from indicating the relations between the various doctrines of the 
Gita as they appear to me. 

Yet as I reread my account, I feel certain compunctions. I have 
an uneasy fear lest in presenting the letter of the Gita I have allowed 
the spirit to escape. That spirit, as I understand it, is a peculiarly 
difficult thing to confine in words, especially in the words of a for- 
eign language spoken by a people with a wholly foreign background 
of ideas. It is also difficult, in any language, to express this spirit 
while presenting the logical relations between the various ideas con- 
tained in the book. It might indeed be maintained, perhaps, that to 
present the book’s ideas in logical relationship is to violate its spirit. 

For, as we have now abundantly seen, the Gita makes no attempt 
to be logical or systematic in its philosophy. It is frankly mystical 
and emotional. What we may, if we like, call its inconsistencies are 
not due to slovenliness in reasoning; nor do they express a balanced 
reserve of judgment. This is sufficiently proved in several cases by 
the fact that the Gita deliberately brackets two opposing views and 
asserts the validity of both. It is only in the realm of logic that we 
must choose between yes and no, or else confess ignorance. The 
Gita finds no difficulty in saying both yes and no, at the same time. 
For its point of view is simply unrelated to logic. Even what it calls 
“knowledge” is really intuitional perception; it is not, and is not 
intended to be, based on rational analysis. And, as we have seen, 
“knowledge” is not the Gita’s favorite “way of salvation.” To the 


96 CHAPTER XIII 


Gita, as to the Christian mystics, reason is an uncertain and flicker- 
ing light. The truly “wise” man should abandon it wholly and fol- 
low the “kindly Light,” the lux benigna, of God’s grace. He must 
sink his personality in ecstatic devotion to God, trusting absolutely 
in Him, and throwing upon Him all responsibility, doing all deeds 
as “acts of worship” to God. In the long run nothing else matters. 
Of course, the Gita differs from the Christian mystics in some of its 
fundamental doctrines; for after all it is a Hindu work, and shares 
the common Hindu axioms. Yet in the practical outcome of its teach- 
ings it is astonishing to see how close it comes to many of them. It 
recalls them in its mystical, anti-rational point of view; in its ardent, 
personal, devotional theism; in its subjectivity, its focusing of the 
attention within, to the exclusion of all interest in that which is out- 
side the individual’s soul (“the Kingdom of God is within you’’) ; 
and in its conception of the final goal as complete union with God, a 
state of supernal and indescribable bliss and peace. 

There is one other characteristic of the Gita’s teachings, which 
seems to me to show such good psychology that it might be com- 
mended to the consideration of the Christian mystics; whether it is 
paralleled in their expressions or not, I do not know. The Gita, 
we have seen, values the emotional and the concrete above the 
rational and the abstract because they are “easier.”’ It is less trouble- 
some to feel than to think. I take it that it needs no argument to 
prove the truth of this claim. It is equally evident that doctrines 
imbued with this spirit might naturally be expected to win popular- 
ity. I have already suggested that the enormous following which 
the Gita has always had in India may be due in large part to its 
readiness to meet the ordinary man on his own ground, to make 
salvation as easy as possible for him. Objection might be raised 
against such an attitude from the rationalistic point of view; the 
rationalist may say that what is easier for man to grasp is not neces- 
sarily truer or as true. But from the Gita’s mystical point of view 
a man is as he feels; if he feels united with God, he is—or at least 
he shall be—united with God. And, speaking pragmatically, the 
Gita’s position is justified by the fact that many millions of men have 
found religious comfort in it, and expected salvation through it. Who 
can say that they were disappointed? And if it should be granted 
that they were not, would not the Gita have proved the usefulness 
of its doctrines, and so their pragmatic “truth”? 


APPENDIX 


On SoME TRANSLATIONS AND METHODS OF INTERPRETATION 


OF THE GITA 


There are numerous translations of the Gita, in English and in 
most other European languages. The best in English from the lit- 
erary point of view is Sir Edwin Arnold’s, entitled The Song Celes- 
tial; it is included in the first volume of Arnold’s Poetical Works 
(Boston, Roberts Brothers, 1892). This version does not aim at 
scholarly accuracy, and in details it often departs very widely from 
the original. In my opinion the best scholarly translation in English 
is that of K. T. Telang, entitled, The Bhagavadgita, in the Sacred 
Books of the East, Volume VIII (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1882). 
This contains likewise an introduction and notes. Very valuable, in 
spite of some features which seem to me defects (and of which I 
shall speak presently), is the German translation, with introduction 
and notes, by Richard Garbe (Die Bhagavadgita, Leipzig, Haessel, 
1905 ; second edition, 1921; my references are to the first edition). 

There are many points in the interpretation of the Gita, both as 
a whole and in matters of detail, on which different opinions are 
held by different scholars. Attention has been called in my foot- 
notes to a few of the more important instances. My desire has been 
to warn readers against accepting my opinions with absolute con- 
fidence in the case of all important matters on which different views 
are held by reputable Indologists. Since this book is intended for 
the general public rather than for specialists, I cannot do much more 
than this. 

A method of interpreting the Gita profoundly different from 
mine is exemplified in Professor Garbe’s translation, mentioned 
above. Professor Garbe’s eminently clear and logical mind is 
offended by the evident inconsistencies in the Gita’s philosophy. They 
seem to him to indicate that the Gita is a composite work. He be- 
lieves that the original kernel of it was a Sankhya treatise, which 


08 APPENDIX 


was worked over and expanded by an adherent of the Vedanta phil- 
osophy. He thinks that the Vedanta additions can be detected and 
eliminated ; this is what his translation undertakes to do. He prints 
in small type what he regards as later additions ; the large type repre- 
sents his idea of the original Gita. He finds a confirmation of his 
theory in this, that when the supposedly secondary passages are 
excluded, the “original” verses thus brought into juxtaposition seem 
to him to fit on to each other, forming a consecutive whole. 

My objections to this theory may be grouped under three heads. 
The first and most fundamental one is that it seems to me based 
on modern, occidental, and rationalistic principles, which cannot be 
applied to a Hindu work of the age of the Gita. What I mean by 
this will, I trust, be clear to anyone who has read this book; the 
whole book may be regarded as a general criticism of Garbe’s theory. 
Secondly, Garbe’s dissection eliminates only one group of philo- 
sophic inconsistencies in the Gita; an important one, to be sure, but 
by no means the only one. Garbe himself is constrained to admit 
that there are others (see, e. g., his Introduction, pp. 43f., 50). On 
this point, too, my book furnishes abundant evidence. For instance, 
no possible dissection could eliminate the inconsistencies in the use 
of the term yoga.?®* Thirdly, it seems to me that Garbe is mistaken 
in thinking that the elimination of certain passages reunites verses 
which evidently belong together but have been separated by the 
alleged interpolations. I believe that just the opposite is often the 
case. ‘That is, a verse immediately following a passage excised by 
Garbe can, in many cases, be shown to be connected with the excised 
passage, in such a way as to indicate that the latter must have been 
in existence when the former was composed. The proof of this 
proposition depends on philological evidence; this is not the place 
to present it.?°° 

298 See above, pages 66ff. Garbe recognizes the different uses of the term 
yoga in the Gita, but regards as secondary (“umgedeutet,” p. 44) its use in the 
sense of “disciplined activity determined by duty.” He also regards the term 
sdnkhya as meaning regularly what it means in later Hindu philosophy. To me 
it seems reasonable to take as basic the passages in the Gita in which the words 
sankhya and yoga are formally joined and contrasted with each other. In all 
such passages it seems to me obvious that sdnkhya is applied to the quietistic 
method of pure “knowledge” with abstention from activities, yoga to the method 
of activity with indifference to results. These, then, must be regarded as the 
Gita’s basic interpretations of the two words; and they are evidently very dif- 
ferent from the connotations attached to them later. All this, of course, is paren- 
thetical at this point. Whatever may be the standard or original meaning of 
the word yoga, it is admitted by Garbe that it is used in very different senses in 
unquestionably original parts of the Gita. 


299 T had intended to publish it separately in a philological journal. I have, 
however, been largely anticipated by the late lamented Professor Oldenberg of 


’ 


TRANSLATIONS AND METHODS OF INTERPRETATION 99 


The importance of Garbe’s work on the Gita seems to me to lie 
in his penetrating philological analysis of the meaning of the individ- 
ual stanzas. In this respect his translation has no superior in any 
language. I have profited greatly by his learning and acumen, and 
so, I am sure, have all serious students of the Gita. His theory of 
the composition of the poem does not in the least affect the value 
of his book in this respect, which I wish to emphasize especially 
because of my strong dissent from that theory. 


My own interpretation tacitly assumes the unity of the Gita. 
There seems to me to be no definite reason for any other assumption. 
It is certain, at any rate, that for many centuries the Gita has been 
handed down as a unit, in practically the form in which it now 
exists. The sanctity which the text acquired in the eyes of the Hin- 
dus has protected it to an extraordinary degree from textual cor- 
ruptions. Variant readings in the manuscripts are virtually non- 
existent.°°° There is absolutely no documentary evidence that any 
other form of the Gita than that which we have was ever known 
in India. This, of course, does not prove that none ever was known; 
but it leaves a strong burden of proof upon those who maintain such 
a theory. They must show that the Gita is quite exceptional among 
works of its class; whereas it seems to me, on the contrary, that its 
general character is very similar to that of the nearly contemporary 
Upanishads. The fact that the Gita is imbedded in the Mahabharata, 
which is known to contain many interpolations, is not to the point. 
The Mahabharata as a whole never acquired a religious position like 
the Gita’s; it exists in widely different versions,—versions which 
differ in the inclusion or omission of many extensive passages,—and 
Gottingen, in his article entitled “Bemerkungen zur Bhagavadgita,” in the 
Nachrichten von der koniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften su Gottingen, 
1919, pp. 321-338 (this subject is treated on pages 328ff.). This article contains 
several of the examples which I intended to use, and some others. It also con- 
tains an admirable critique of Garbe’s theory from the standpoint expressed in 
the first of my objections above. I am glad to find that so high an authority 
as Oldenberg felt as I do that the general spirit of the Gita is no less unitary 
than that of similar works of its class, and that it is an error to see in it a mix- 
ture of different schools of philosophy. I am less impressed by some of the 
positive points made in Oldenberg’s article, particularly by his view that the 
last six chapters of the Gita are an addendum or addenda. Much of his argu- 
mentation on this point seems to me as subjective and improbable as Garbe’s. 
I cling to the view that there is no reason to suppose that any considerable part 
of the Gita was added after it left the hands of the original author. Olden- 
berg’s article appeared during the war, and although it had been available in this 
country for some time, it had escaped my notice until this book was completely 
ready for the printer. It has, however, not caused me to make any changes, 
except for the addition of this note and the deletion of the promise to print the 


philological evidence referred to above. 
300 Telang, op. cit., p. 34. 


100 APPENDIX 


its text is in very many places full of corruptions and manuscript 
variations ; while the Gita is textually a clearly defined unit and its 
numerous manuscripts show practically no real variants. 

Yet I would not be understood as asserting that there are no 
interpolations in the Gita. Before it acquired its present odor of 
sanctity, which has kept it for so many centuries substantially free 
from changes of any sort, it must have lived through a human, 
undeified period, so to speak; and it is entirely possible that 
during that period some additions may have been made to it. 
I suppose that every careful student of the Gita is likely to develop 
suspicions about occasional verses or passages. But the grounds for 
such suspicions must, in the nature of things, be subjective and tenu- 
ous. In no case can they be regarded as approximating scientific 
demonstration. And, in particular, the fact that a given verse or 
passage is logically inconsistent with other passages in the Gita con- 
stitutes, in my opinion, absolutely no reason for suspecting that it is 
unoriginal. If my book has not shown that, it has failed indeed. 


INDEX OF WorDS AND SUBJECTS 


PAGE 
Action, function of Material Nat- 

WRENS eis ae Ok OL: ne Gls 40-42, 60 
if unselfish, does no harm... .58-62 
(See also Discipline, Karma) 

PRU TRPT Laas aie ahef ih Ghrecelei oe iotnte dia. 74n. 
ahamkéara Se oie bike Sate Mets As ota 40 
ahinsd, “harmlessness”........ 87, 88 
AT TEQUILA ty Oa AN REM ARGO RR 15 
Be WNL ALN «aE ot) Bis AEA A Rn Ma er 10, 11 
PATPEP RTRs be asia So.sls ea dale Sue oh 
PUTATITIESILE og ti ce 30st tee ahaeic's ee inca 

Ariana os i: 38, 53n., me pot wat 7 
ATMO esity bon ee een ae, 4, 55, 97 
Arrangement of ideas in ey) Mit, - 
PPM AT GG Ana hie ashe kt aie te actent ys 

SOT ete Soke wiles aa A Gee 6 6 
Asceticism, as way of salvation.. 

5 ph WAN A OL OR 27-29, 57, 58, 76 
opposed in Gita.......... 58-61, 71 
(See also Quietism) 

Athair va 60d, s salds des tale: 8, 12, 13 
Pandy fol yaa ugh Brehm Ne hls nie pa aia 86 


ere eer ee ees eeeeesereeeeoeee en 


Authorship Ot Gi A 
PVATICOUAT Ge eu hes Cae le pee Pe 
BUGLOr ema eka etait sats cats 54 
(Pa EVES CAE OA WN S vara OARS Wl Ae aS 23 
BacGnw ROVETL ya ese eee rf 
AAD AVALNG es ra ar ath eee ere 
BHAREM es eee Ro we Lk 26, 74, 78 

(See also Devotion) 
PianGarkary Sir ns) Gee tees 32n. 
Body, (see Material Nature, 

Soul) 
Boenme mlacdh sees vee 
DranMia sce, raw meiesiece 31, Abie ee 
“Brahma,” Emerson’s poem on. 4 
OFGRMARL LE UOT ss Pea 

UIP AOOLS, 2ligea wasn eo: 

ES EAD ee L 48-51, et passim 

identified with matter on non- 
EE ysl My RE GS Sig ebleren fo OER 53 
relation tO, God. a. eee ees 48-53 


PAGE 
Ish edabert B11 RO RAPE Rea B, 1 O 52 
EP ORINGUITUONDS 6 ash cae ad cnt te ee 
Breath (see Life-breath) 
BiiddhaBuddbismie ees vee ore 
B sats Zin. 22,: 267 58,°71;) S200 
DEAANG Gi ce eae de Oe eee Ree eetenia 39 
(Castes, duties Of. nicer. cc ete 61 
Categorical imperative ........ 62 
Christian mysticahc: vec. 38n., 96 
UWhristianityiesari ss 26, 54, 74n., 79 
Mater or Gita vie gins cet dcun eu. 3 
Deathihoursot oe WO was 78 
Deed (see Karma) 
Deity (see God) 
PIDETRONIAG MET Lea ance ne 86 
Desire, as cosmic force (see 
Kama, will) 
as ‘cause. of rebirth. 2.52%. 21, 58 
BanTOOt, OL all SiTkiae s Ue teios 87 
Devotion, as help to salvation, 
itl PANISNAdS cued sis Beteulee 
LOP(500 11TH rIES Caos ete Katie 
ee Ma aN 49, 73-79, 85, 86, 96 
SVC HTistianit Yue cn cardhle oh 74n. 
See also Bhakti. 
PDH atari hee otros ma ene eatin) 
Discipline of action.60, 65-72, 76- 5 
DI GUDE. cocks Wee er este ana os 
Date Vole en ci atin ys 59-63, 77, 81 
“Easy way” sought by Gita.... 
Pen atta a han eke , 50, 68, 96 
EIVETSON. FL talce son hans pu as 4 
BINGE IS Oot cur ey ae rem ee ate 15 
EXIM DPODLEnEL OF ci wal: Gorcia G 46-48 
PCV ETE iea seat 8 ahs 39, 40, 52 
PXIStENC SENG TT cee eet co. awe 16 


Fervor (see tapas) 
Field and Field-knower (Body 


and oul) ins 41, 43, 44, 51 
Fighting (see War) 
First Principle, Vedic........ 11-16 


“Friar Bacon and Friar Bun- 
3 
gay 


102 


PAGE 
Gandhi ortin can cece: sles aotee eee i, ii 
Gar be twigs i onl hep retusa 97-99 
God, nature of Cin Gita) oie 44-55 
prehistory of the Gita’s....30-33 
double nature sOf >. esas cs 51-53 
limitation Orme tei nee 47, 48 
meditation on, at death...... 78 
relation to human soul....... 
MaMa aah A Mes eM , 38, 44, 45 
salvation by are wpe TEs 
DeLee she Sct er Oster: 6 77, 78, 96 
ifeadeehaayes whe BLP eran 48 
WHOM AWitiwes sew 23, 37, 75-79 
See also Devotion, Incarnation. 
AGoldenme Rule voces hake sa 62,505,007 
Greene Robert(y. avo seek ok y, 
gunas, of matter..... 39-42, 51, 60, 71 
Harmlessness (see ahinsa) 
TISNOLDOISIT nec e ce sae eras 8 9, 10 
Ignorance, cause of evils...... 23 
incarnation; OL GOdss....6 hee , 54 
Inconsistencies in Gita......... 
Ties ova 38n., 49, 80, 95, 98-100 
Indifference recommended..... 
NA a 66, 69, 71, 93 79, 86 


Instruction, as help to salvation 65 
Intuition 


eooceocereoeree ee ewe ee ew eee ’ 


EAU nhc Uist OER etal ae 43, 88 
VOSUSIN Te ere, eran RN Wg 26 
INOHG-YOOE Nes eestor ieee de 66 
PAL ae ete saa snes a NRO oie Noe ace 12 
IS GMTS H Ce ike eral eee a eee LAD iS 
Mantiicervest neuter ae wee 16n., 62 
Karma, doctrine. OF IP 
Hep en Ler ee 21, 24, 56-63, 77 
(See also Aaa 
RAPMA-NOGG. (sees a tae Ghee s 66, 67 
RathanUinanishad:.cunra een 
Killing (see War) 
Knowledge, power of.......... 
ele aN eae eM ar 6207 11/12 13-5 64.'65 
Ss APT IGU wee te aie Mee LN 24, 86 
way of salvation by......... 


23, 2 a 29, 42, 64-74, 82, 85, 95 


Krishna... , 31- 33, 38, 54, 62, 74, 75 
Life-breaths 2). A eee 1 Wales 
Logic, Gita’s attitude towards.. 

Day M eee sala ek re 95, 96 
Love of God (see Devotion) 
Macie. e442. 677, 509; re 25, 28n. 
Mahabharata 56 core 1, 39n., 99 
Man cosmic 094 cana: Lie 15 40 
manas 


@eeereeoeeseeveereseven ener 


INDEX OF WORDS AND SUBJECTS 


PAGE 
Material Nature....... 39-44, 51-54 
Materialiste vivo wee es , 84, 
Matter (see Material Nature) 
MOVE aa eee 18n., 43, 51, 52, 54 
Meditation: {7.70 2 on oe ae 65 
Modérationt.t.0rs ce eee 71 
M ohamimed aii tie ce ese eaen 26 
Monism iV edicaeyuss ae one 10- 
Upanishadicn.sy 1a 16901830 
In Us Tta, akiaars an aoe eas 45, 48-51 
Monotheism, Vedic starts 
ECO WALUS ak 6 cits oe ens , 14 
in Upanishads 2.2.5. ve ee 31 
in early popular religions of 
Indiav ies ee we eee 0-3 
ih Wsita. Sore aees 26, 31-33, 44-55 
Morality, transcended by per- 
rected SOUL). eee oe 24 
as help to salvation....... 25, 85 
Practical ine Gita.0 one 85-88 
Mystic vision of God....54, 55, 73 
area sie eve oh Rak ate Ota 
2, 38n., 51, 53-55, 82, 95, 96 
Nature-worship 2) o00 yor sole wae a 
HELE INZE Se won es Oece Ce renee 
Nirvana....... BACT Yas WAY fo 716 i 
Non-existent, The Se eu eters 
Oldenberg, H..39n., 71n., 98n., 99n. 
om, sacred ‘Syllables. <0: ayce , 78 
One, The (see Monism, Mono- 
theism) 
Orthodoxy, Hindu....... 59, 80-83 
Pacifism (see War, ahinsé) 
Pairs of opposites: 20214. 6ee 59 
Panthéism (se eee 45-47 
Parallelism between Man and 
Universé<cien. one 157010: oe 
Parameshthin ure, wseees ee ree 
Periected/State 1027.0) oe 51-23 
(See also Nirvana) 
Pessimismiy, heats ees 21, 29,556 


Philosophic Systems (see Sys- 


Pi secoke Hindu contrasted 
with western iy ose coos. 5-7 
Poetic character of Gita....... 2 
Pragmatism #042) oc oe een 96 
Praiapatiiic suns ann 10-12 
Prakriti (see Material Nature) 
Prana gidieeuk oee eee ee Va be 
Priests. 5 V edits s.auinatens rye Bs, 
accused of selfishness....... 82 
Pronunciation of Sanskrit 
Wiokdsiy Ac acoer fee fc cee iv 
Purusha, as First Principle. . 
15, 48, 51, 78 


(soul of man). vu. ee ae 9, 


INDEX OF WORDS AND SUBJECTS 


PAGE 
Qualities (see gunas) 
OPITELIGTIReNe aii tcs oh ees cones 59, 60 
(See also Asceticism) 
Quotations of older rare in 


Oye expe, bein bs Daeg RE Sars eae | 
Wry ea es eon at ee cae 39, 42, 71n 
Be AnesTie (Oth) ore een eo elves aie 

(See also Logic, Mysticism) 
metirtives oes 19, 29, 56, 57, et passim 
TS La a Rao alata lie SU en rt 19, 65 
Religions, Gita’s attitude 

PeWwaboss Other oh ct ok o's 0-84 
PETTITT a tac <4 sie 20 

(See also Karma) 

PTA Vella ty gc. 3, 8-16, 32, 48, 74n. 
Ritualism.8-10, 13, V7; 59, 65, ‘80-83 


Ritualistic elements in Vedic 
DIGOISDE is sas a ee 13, 14, HS 

Peking 8 ee Pye oa An taeda) RE DU Said 

ACTING Wh pine t eh sant. 61n., 65, 80-83 


(See also Ritualism) 
Salvation, ways of, in Eee 


SAGE ee ch bees oe Cae as ee ea as 

in general une Sh ie aS oe 
Tim oIt AT mca Doles 49, 64- 59 
Sankhya, meaning of ae ae 66 
inethe, Gita... 2% 65-68, 72, 97, 98 

PALER elacs Sa RTA oe ee 
See 18n., 22 NSU 43) OOT. OD: 
RUN YOUU AIA toed ie & sre he! raed caste vio 67 
SEMA Ree ins Ae aus ce hae 1 
SLIDE aA ete e ce ous 39, 42, 71n 
PE OLICISTI A) aoe ge eS veo. 11 
SON ONET Mae Rash st wae clit! sere soca 12 
VOL LAr retake nett eo tiaie eee te L5etiO 718 
IN Others fa iessne aces: 62, 63, 87 

(See also Soul) 

DGlretVOTOLISIIVR 81; cal erie ae oho Oe 66 
SPN TAT Ly pray Bae tee Ditermeat ae Sake st et 0 
Sex in cosmic relations...... 52,00 

SERED Cle EOS Aer ey aie epee a 
LT Se ha ey AT Rae IET Fe oi. oon 
BOGIR ONDE che othe Cw des Bete eae 1 


103 


PAGE 

SEPALS Ceres CoN kittie bale wee 24, 86 
Soul, distinguished from body. 

eke wee ss 1, 19, 38-44, i 65 

UI OCtAEYyP OF. seen be sk ak 1, 38 

Be pare oie GOUT. oct eee ae 38 

human, = First Principle. .18, 37 

See also Self, dtman. 

PPACe ass tee oe a he dee ee 15 
summum bonum............ 7, 19, 24 
(See also Nirvana, Perfected 

State, Salvation) 
BU, vaseirst’ ETiNCIples Juke 12 
Systems of Philosophy in India 

Re ia Bee vba nae tand Mig tbeae he a os Abpea 
TONES ed Sak ers tae Meine ot 39. 42007 10. 
IVT Ap oa sande ae gr ae ee A ie 14, 27-29 
Melanie ry aay alcule ae he 97, 99n. 
Gimew as Piste Ptincipienss se: 12 
Transcendance of the One (or 

(S00) * beyond: saline oa'zs uly 14, 48 
Transmigration (see Rebirth) 
FASPAMAUIPEE | gale Os ten Ad deed kel, O2n5 Ste 
Wpoanishads (7... 4-7, 11, 16, 17-33 


et passim. 


Vedanta. ..17, 18n.; 38n., 43,°52) 98 
WAT ATY tas be None a AIAG crores eee 12 
PHO r ye ue Sa'e Lena lab atae alk Sree eab: 6 
Riclence see War, ahinsa 
IS UEt cue ti eo me ot 31-33, Dan 
VIB TNT LESH. 4s toilets as 1) th ty, OF 
Maestvalkarriaess vu.5 mans fo 4s re 10 
Teens tr ante Bi 38n., 62, 87, 88 
Will as easmic. forcesc..+.8 Leis 
a een na wns we Sera iyos 1011. 30 
Yoga, meaning of the word. 66 
in the Gita.65-72, 76, 77. 78, 81, 98 
later shee 18n., 43, 67n., 71n. 
VOUT ee iy ota a eo ee : 68, 69 


INDEX OF PASSAGES QUOTED OR REFERRED TO 


PAGE PAGE 
Rig Veda Atharva Veda: 
EU Oat ata eames Seine 1, 48 Casts Ar Shur © WAR i cy 12 
DOR A290 Sor nae 11, 16, 27 | Shatapatha Brahmana: y 
1 UG pes VR I Ro A cae reese 
UPANISHADS 
Brihad Aranyaka Up Katha Up 
| Rar DAY LO ASSN a iar Ba A Ne a 18 Du Tig Mik rate crs ache e eets Cee 25 
Pe dl Wane Nb chants Ce VR OAR hy ied ore 18 Dey hon Oe Sees wee ee ee 27 
OUEU Eye Mink hse ee na 21, 38 Qc DOI URT oe ata yea othe clita Cee Ce 27 
Bihan Vignes Wii keer ec Mage 3 Oe 4 OM etait cee een 24 
DU MED petaiaie Mew alae urns crete 
PE AE Up MONA MATH ari eal 18 | Kaushitaki Up.: 
43.1080 sresseceeeesss 22 BY BY RUM Pe SE RLF Dai Fay ase 23, 24 
MOSES Wiles ciatcla ee Ri Meals ie Ly : 
PSMA UV Vs oy Fea Wi RAN et t 
ee 33 Five PTB EEA, oa «he oe © Cee ee ereeercecerens 
A Wi EO a AER eo peets sw Tela Poa Prashna Up.: 
44S cece ee ee eens 20,215 |e eye ate ul t AU ee 25 
ALACO WN 2 urate eee y Eeded are 21 
BSS 1G OY Veter Sr enuars natoks |e 22 | Shvetashvatara Up.: 
1 Se tres he vier I rc aif bie Le BULB 23: te eee re ee 26 
Chandogya Up Taittiriya Up.: 
BY Aree ee eee eee 18 Decilse eek bets eeu etek see oe 29 
BHAGAVAD GITA 
Chapter 2 Chapter 3 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE | VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
Livsdse cies SO een By CFE | Wee oon 62 20-25) 12 cee 60 
1S he, teas 19, a be Pea AEN os Bit een rah, 66 oe 2 AR Ce aaaine 40 
18 cs aii 38) anata eh oR vir tore Wags ne eee ve 
p18 Dea hake aety: 4 OOieoe widiote the 59 Pg oe AEN Ti 60 a oth ep ci aa pa a 
20 A Ohne SO je ae 67 | B .eseeeeeee 60 30-32 61, 77 
oo Poacwies 19, 56 ae ae Fahne a OD oy hight 61, 81 XS SENG | 60 
D4 aN SF AL UN ae ze OO rH PE iiee iive _ me EAS m ey 
pA Bye A Nae M/A es ae i! Bh oy AO Wigan ati tee the ose ibe pe EE 
CYA Meee 38 AR Oa etal 66, 67.| 17, 18 ....: 71 KY pratt 58, 87 
OU Satie | S253 oe aes SAUL CLO lz meee 59 Ge ae 40 


INDEX OF PASSAGES QUOTED OR REFERRED TO 


Chapter 4 

VERSE PAGE ‘VERSE PAGE 
et eas hata § 54 eae COeR Oe 

(eee ind age 54 7th RN eae 65, 82 
Es Les dane 65 A EL ACAD Sap 62, 87 
| Wea Seg HE UNE ta 83 Gite ees 64, 85 
1 RS Ded OOS cen pace. 
| A Bs to ey ee BO oe Uns ity xb 8 
AER fae ae 81 As eects 
Zo at 61, 81 SIAL ooo 64 
DU elit dase a > 

Chapter 5 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
Pe eng raths ty 67, 68 VAG eases 42 
6 US habe 59 Ppa pen pe 41 
OS aly AR 67 ae te. 65 
ch lie Del Sle 67 LS Oey 62, 87 
eed a ee 68 jE A ear a pekeat 63 
yA hs ie 63, 87 ZU oul Pan es 59 
Phe nh 3 Nd aie 41 A PAT. He hihcn Pa eae 70 
Lea ae 53 Ba Gem iie sate 87 
1 Udall 69 Zs PRS ices 57 

Chapter 6 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
ew eee 59 1 ea te 45, 62 

A Mae 63, 87 NHS 

10-}Aree ee, 58 a WA ales ha 63, 87 
i BERT hy ge 76 Set Tuten rs 69 
A 5 soak a> th 71 Gili ire ae 69 
CAE Pas AE ocr bate 70 AT ae 69, 76 
ACD AR 62, 87 

Chapter 7 
VERSE PAGE ‘VERSE PAGE 
Ea Ye pepe 74 key Sant A Sen 86 
AaDbiers tea 51 1S ares ea 65, 74 
Rs lee 45 Ws UN aaEe p tan | 83 
PA See 45 BIN 2h es: 83 
Bai O sae. 45 Shines getty 84 
Live et eens 47 LA tiatilerete ns 52 
1 Aa OATS 46, 48 ZOU cee ek an 54 
a aa! 

Chapter 8 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
OO vie 36 78 EAR ae Le 74 
Oi ee ee 78 TOR Aa 56, 73 
Fini SOA 75 vg bake atk NA 73 
LR See 49 IS AD Weties 52 
LOG cae eh Ae A) SESE E LY Ba ptey’. 
TS yon ae 78 Zoned ie 78 


Chapter 9 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
Cae aL Tanne 48 Ed RENEE SS rhe 
Se be ee 48 PB Ay a ee 84 
PIS ae elles 52 Gin aes 78 
Dts meas 60 Bhs ee uaa 77 
LEP Se aero 52 SE ena ora 76 
TZ MAS es 49 BOsaa aca 75 
Eas eal 46 DUS Meee eS 
“ANE Bi WRAY Bk 83 OF aa ae 75 
ZA ere 83 
Chapter 10 
VERSE PAGE ‘VERSE PAGE 
Pe Aaah pee Mite 54, 82 hs i cys 54 
Saas 65 CO eae ae AG 
Cate ahaa a 46 BSA ida eer 48 
Semeur 46, 88 RF Aaa bea Rolle pte 46 
Un cee ake as 79 OF OTe a 
Tabs ert cuneer: 76 a6 RN Rh 46 
hime e eee AO Me POS ro suo roe 46 
LR EP i ieee 48 4 mae Reg 45 
pe. ane ae 54, 82 Bi paZr Ney 48 
Chapter 11 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
Bat ello Bie 55 Re ciple ame 55 
Bree se cece 55 VELA eed 55 
TEZe ve Ven a aries 55 BB ee. 55, 82 
Logwore vee: 5 Pak ant Me! 
LOR ce: S125) BF a ween ee 
Oe et yMN aan SSP eh 75, 79 
Chapter 12 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
pa Che 2g i ne Sed 77 
Di Pihe cee 75 £34205) ow 79 
Chapter 13 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
Dee tae 41, 44 7B EO ge 42 
2 TN ght RE 44, 51 Be 2 Die. cn 65 
Bo rasa Soe 39 Orde termites 43 
Pee Peis dt dees 86 ELE SR Lae 37 
Fit Ae owen 88 7 MOI EH 63, 87 
TeV Nae 50 Nts wae ae 40 
Poe Fee 41 19 1 he ieee ea sb 51 
Chapter 14 
VERSE PAGE ‘VERSE PAGE 
Titers yee 65 ZO a ee 42 
+ He Sr ep ee 53 22-25 65, 72 
ea he ss 42 BAER Te Wear 
SERS ESRD RE 39 ZOE ROA ae 76 
POTS ene We Wy 41 21 Ba 50 


106 

Chapter 15 
YERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
ek Rage opp ee a 23 IZ LS eee 45 
LADS ee 42 OMIT. 44 
Cite ca exe tye 38 

Chapter 16 
Entire \Chapterns.a.. acess « ro pan 86 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
LOM lees 86 ES Seen ane 86 
CMa es 88 20S 86 
SP Rata de eke 86 Zl ve hese 87 
RTIAS AG? 86 Ze wwiek' a) 85, 86 
Een gre 83, 86 OUR C wales 87 
LOTEMIAie eto 86 


INDEX OF PASSAGES QUOTED OR REFERRED TO 


Chapter 17 
Entire Chaptétis'..0 sane ie 39 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
SRE CARE UA 60 14h ee ar, 88 
RE ee she 81 

Chapter 18 
VERSE PAGE VERSE PAGE 
Be sciene als Gees 60 51-53 oe ee 86 
5 Rind up aa 57, 61 SIE Puts ye 75 
SPARE a 61, 81 S07 0/0 ee 78 
1 eG ae aes © 60 58), 50. YisGze75 
Pay, Dedbsh eteal yoy 61 GOL ae, 60 
41-44 ...... 61 Ob ee Pein 45 
AS AR ey ae 61 CO ia ae 75, 84 


Ca tay 


‘ be) Lao 
ry VA) 








Wiis val 


ee a 
He tnt 





rie ‘4 


Ei 4. ant 
: j ee aT es 4 
A YAN 5 iy oh F 


fg My AA adh! 


ious 


; 


van my | i in 


a 


— 
— s 


ian 


au 


an Ri 
LN aa 


¥ 


eG ri : A) UR 
MOA! SAD Me 
aye $31 me " iil hd . 


¥ 





ie 


ees ~~ 


| an ») rd Tae eh te 
eviews 
{} pw 


| y na \ a y 
re ae ia 


er aee reer), 


el CO i Al Nt aie ml in i AED 





j oll rf as + ai He y 


P A ; 
ee 
i 0 





BL1130 .E23 
The Hee se gita; or, Song of the 


eton Theological Seminary—Speer 




























































































ii 


1 1012 00009 6323 


— ——— 


— 


ee Se 
oo a SS 
are 


Le i : mas : iam SF ww 
Pm ah gts x s a ; e ‘ Se ASS a 4 ‘ Serer ae HE 
a te é. ‘ aot “ = ~ : <p - oe nanouie : ‘ r ° Bettie e, 


od 


ii eS Atal i SPP eeepc isi bat. edge ne ees 2 ure iit ‘ és . a a NL Ri es hae 
- eae aS ar es ¥ = a s Sara ‘ . < 3 Ci PUM AS ama 
= . : ae 3 . a. : ; . ee : ee 
ooh, Se ER, Sane we mee, Py dade oe 


i he ee an Le 
a OR Be oe 
ERR EF ora i et re Fae 
Pa PR pe Bk pee wee oe ne 


on 


et ree 


po PhP ak 


Pe PE FA PL OL FB PY DE ae 


a Pea! 





